Scottish Water has said the latest 3-way traffic signals at The Fountain are essential to repairing a water main fault before it affected customer supplies.

New roadworks appeared on Sunday morning (10th November) without any notice, with traffic under signals on Broad Street, High Street and Bridge Street. Tailbacks have been reported as far as the Little Raith Wind Farm, with standing traffic on the A92 Cowdenbeath off-slip too.

Responding to our request for information about the reason or a statement about the roadworks, they apologised to customers, saying:

“We are currently carrying out a repair to a burst water main, which we hope to complete this afternoon. Following this, our team will remain on site to fully reinstate the area. This reinstatement process will take a couple of days to allow the tar to properly set.”

“In these situations, our top priority is to resolve the issue quickly to minimise any disruption and potential impact on services. Therefore, providing advance notice isn’t always feasible.”

“We’re working as quickly as possible to repair the issue and would like to thank residents and road users for their continued patience during recent repairs in the area.”

The High Street had previously been closed off completely just last Tuesday (5th Nov), affecting bus passengers and vehicles using the town centre, with the road outside Partners bar being dug up for a similar ‘mains leak’ issue.

Traffic then was diverted around the town and bus routes serviced Stenhouse Street instead of High Street for three days.

Details shared by Cllr Bailey-Lee Robb on Facebook suggested the diversions had been drawn up by Scottish Water contractor, Clancy, on 1st November however, with no prior warning issued to locals.

One local businessman, who wanted to remain anonymous, told us, “It’s a complete disgrace, hardly a week goes by without some company digging up our town centre and usually without any notice or thought to the disruption this causes. Trading is hard enough for businesses at the minute and its becoming even harder to run a shop in Cowdenbeath High Street when there is so much traffic chaos – folk just avoid the area, making other small neighbourhood roads congested and dangerous, and folk just don’t want to come out in that, which means takings are down. I don’t know how long I can keep going.”

In other major roadwork disruption, work is due to begin this week in Leuchatsbeath Drive by Scottish Gas Networks for a month! Roadworks will be carried out from the junction with Foulford Road right up to the junction with Craigbeath Court.

The gas mains replacement is part of a wider programme of work, which will see major disruption in the new year too, with months of gas mains work happening along Perth Road and into the High Street near Lidl and B&M.

The Scottish Road Works Commissioner website is available to view upcoming roadworks here.