WORKING FOR YOU Let’s learn from bad weather

After all the nasty weather we have had to suffer during the winter it’s nice to see – at least at the time of writing this column – spring has arrived.

And I hope you all have a pleasant summer. We all deserve one.

Back in March, at the last council meeting, SNP councillor Mark Kerr moved a motion to set up a member/ officer working group to investigate the feasibility and direction of a councilrun transport network being developed to serve our area.

As everyone I am sure will agree, bus transport is a major problem in large parts of Airdrie, Coatbridge and their surrounding villages.

There are areas which don’t see a bus after 6pm or 7pm. I have also had issues in Gartlea, where a route was cancelled a couple of years ago, causing major problems for elderly people and others who either had to get taxis or stay in the house and rely on family and friends.

I am aware there is another bus company who removed routes in the recent past and are now looking to do the same with others.

I was delighted to see support from the Labour group for our motion but disappointed once again there was no support from the Tory group.

It would be great to see this proposal work to the benefit of the elderly and poor in our community.

As I said at the beginning of this column, we had a very nasty winter and in the last bad spell we had a red warning for the first time.

The reason I mention this again is that I can’t believe some of the council workforce were told they had to pay back holiday time for the Friday morning if they missed work, even although they were told to stay at home.

And, of course, the conditions were still very bad in the housing schemes.

The council is now looking into setting up a member/ officer working group to look into what we can learn from the way the council deal with bad winters.

The SNP group believe, among other things, we need more grit put down near schools and sheltered housing areas.

We also believe that after what happened during the last bad spell roads to dairy farms should be treated earlier.

I believe the staff payment area requires to be looked at when weather as bad as this hits us again.

I would like to think there are no hard and fast rules about payment to staff. Some of them have been treated badly.

I also believe it is important for the frontline staff who had to be there to be thanked once again for their efforts.

I was interested to read Councillor Logue’s comments last week concerning the North Lanarkshire Hall of Fame, which this week will see a further eight people inducted.

Last year it was a real pleasure to meet great world champions such as Monklands’ own Ricky Burns and John Higgins from Wishaw – such down-to-earth guys.

These two were inducted last year and there were others inductees who aren’t as wellknown as them.

Angela Robertson, for instance, was a great swimming champion in the 1980s.

Unless you are a fan of the game you probably wouldn’t know about the great cricketer Budhi Kunderan, who was a star for Drumpellier round about the same time. Before then he was also an international with India.

What a pleasure it was to see their families and friends enjoying the day.

There are many other great sportsmen and women out there, past and present, and it would be great to see them join the other inductees.

We need more grit put down near schools and sheltered housing areas