After the Summer break Council business has resumed, starting with the Dunfermline Area Committee. Community funding, transport issues and complaints were discussed.

The meeting began with traffic regulation orders in Dunfermline North and also the town centre. We then moved onto various funding issues. This included funding to help reopen Abbot House, which I welcomed and spoke in. I commented we need to make use of the asset to help boost tourism. There were notes of concern however about the viability and Councillors are keen for the organisation that is taking on this to come back to speak to Councillors.

We also had funding for community events, such as the Outwith Festival, the Fireworks at Bonfire night and the Christmas lights switch on event, as well as Community Safety iniatives. These were all supported by the Councillors.

We then came to the scrutiny side of the meeting. We had an update on the complaints procedure by the Council. I noted a very welcome drastic improvement on the response time for Stage 2 (more complex) complaints by around 20% and asked how this was achieved. The customer service team answered that a considerable level of work was done for this. I also asked about about a small reduction in the response for Stage 1 complaints, which they noted could be due to a number of uncontrollable factors.

We then moved onto an update on the Roads work taking place. I asked on the likelihood of the category 2 (lower priority) projects taking place this financial year. The answer was this would likely to be next financial year.

We also had reports on capital funding, common good funding and housing services adoptions of roads.

The next meeting will take place in October.