Council bosses declared this week a controversial flood protection scheme has been completed as locals continued to level criticism at the officials involved in its construction.

Local authority leader Councillor Murray Lyle was among the top brass who turned up to a specially arranged photo shoot this Tuesday to mark the end of works on the Almondbank Flood Protection Scheme which went at least £10 million overbudget and was supposed to be finished 11 months ago.

It came after an earlier arranged photo shoot was cancelled not long after residents got wind of the scheduled visit and began questioning why no-one living locally had been told about it.

Revealing residents raised yet more complaints about the works at its latest meeting, Kenneth Simpson of Methven Community Council said last week people had complained about a crack in a bridge, a sports pitch being left in a mess and trees and hedges still needing planted to disguise the damage caused by contractors.

Reacting to that criticism, a council spokesperson insisted the works had delivered significant benefits to the local area.

They said: “A total of £5.1m added social value has been achieved through this project, including £2.6m spent with local small to medium enterprises and £1.7m of value achieved through local employment and skills development programmes.

“Sixty-eight per cent of the workforce employed on the scheme, including within the supply chain, is local to the project. Some 358 tonnes of waste material has also been diverted from landfill for recycling.”

And declaring the works officially over on Tuesday, the convener of the council’s environment committee, Councillor Angus Forbes, said: “With this scheme in place we can offer greater assurance and peace of mind to the residents and communities of Almondbank and Lochty that there is protection in place when we are faced with severe weather events in the future.”

However one resident who turned up to watch Tuesday’s spectacle from afar claimed every room in her home had been coated with filth emanating from the controversial works and now needed completely redecorated.

“It is an absolute mess,” she said, adding: “Cracks have appeared inside our bathroom and on the wall outside and we’ve been waiting on a fence to be put up for the last three months.”

Meanwhile Kenneth Simpson said he could not understand why locals were not consulted again when it became clear to officials the much-maligned scheme was going to look significantly different to what was originally sketched out.

He revealed he had obtained minutes of several meetings attended by officials overseeing the scheme’s construction but there was no mention within them of when controversial decisions were taken to swap materials being used to finish features or drop design elements altogether because of the costs involved.

“Surely there had to be a meeting where these things were agreed and minuted,” he said, adding: “When was that meeting? Who was at it?”

A council spokesperson responded: “As previously stated, we can confirm that no major changes were implemented during the construction of the scheme. Any changes made were minor and in accordance with the published scheme. These minor changes would, by their nature, not have been recorded in project board meeting minutes.”