Flying footballs and parked cars spark plea for help from Glenrothes residents

At Glenrothes area committee, councillors agreed to an action plan to deal with issues at the Auchmuty Road facility.

It includes requesting community teams to look into installing CCTV cameras, issuing traffic regulation orders - and extending the height of the fence to stop footballs from being kicked over the cage and hitting parked cars.

The pitch, which is mainly used by Auchmuty High School, was installed in 2014 and the council has received complaints specifically about parking issues as far back as 2015.

Residents on Auchmuty Road have now raised a petition, signed by 21 people.

They have complained that footballs are getting kicked over 'the cage'- the fence around the pitch - damaging vehicles and windows.

They also claim that footballers' cars are clogging up the road, and playing until the early in the morning and late at night.

Anti- social behaviour includes people climbing over the top and cutting holes in the fence to access the pitch when it is locked up.

On one occasion, young people cut a hole in it just minutes after workmen had completed a repair.

In the petition, Kerran Andrew, local resident, said: 'We are plagued by footballs getting kicked over the high fence, and them damaging our vehicles or hitting our windows.

"When we speak to them, we get nothing but a mouthful of abuse. Police have been called several times, but they say if the school is letting them play there there's nothing they can do.

"Teenagers/adults are in the cage early morning till late evening."

A plea for 'resident only' parking signs was made along with a higher fence, but the community use team said they were not viable options.

In its 134 year history Kirkcaldy YMCA is set to get its first woman...

Robert Gibson, community use team manager for Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy said: "It's a public street, but we do try and reason with people and suggest that they use the school car park."

Councillor Ross Vettraino led a motion outlining an action plan to deal with the issues.

It included asking the transportation to consider a Traffic Regulation Order, and appropriate supervision of the pitches.

The head of housing will be asked to consider the use of CCTV.

Thank you for reading this story on our website. In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, we are asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspapers - the Fife Free Press, Fife Herald, St Andrews Citizen and East Fife Mail.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the highest standards in the world. The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers and consequently the advertising that we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news by buying a copy of our newspaper. Thank you.