Flood-threatened households in Fife urged to apply for funding

Households in danger of having their homes impacted by flooding are being invited to apply for funding to help tackle the issue.

Fife Council has revealed that just 74 people have successfully applied for a Property Flood Resilience Grant this year from a total of 206 applicants.

Members of the Environment, Transportation and Climate Change Scrutiny Committee were given an update this week after a £500,000 capital investment was approved in February last year for the grant initiative.

The support – which has a cap of £5,000 per property – comes after approximately 1,300 flooding issues were reported to have affected properties, businesses and roads in Fife in the last four years.

A total of £190,223 was allocated to 58 applicants in 2024/25 and the remaining £309,777 was rolled over into financial year 25/26, to support property owners affected by or at risk of flooding.

While 74 applicants were successful in receiving the grant, 59 are currently seeking a suitable contractor to do the work while the local authority is still waiting further information from 29 households.

A total of 44 applications – 21 per cent – were refused the support as they did not meet the screening criteria.

Michael Anderson, Fife Council Structural Services Service Manager for the Roads and Transportation Service, said those that were turned down were deemed not to be at risk.

“People have to be directly affected by flooding. We have a lot of people who have garden drainage issues that is not technically flooding,” he explained.

“Some people are asking for drainage work in their garden but we are looking at water entering someone’s house.

Councillors heard that more work is to be undertaken to ensure residents are aware of the support available.

Mr Anderson added: “We are advertising as much as we can to get people to apply. We have had a very nice summer but it is when it starts to rain that people will maybe take notice and say they need to do something about it.

“We will probably find once we get a bit of rain, people will start to apply again as they start preparing.”