Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
JIM LOGUE Choices to be made
Two weeks ago was a truly depressing time to be a councillor in North Lanarkshire.
Yet again, we found our budget slashed by the SNP in Edinburgh – this time by more than £30 million – which left us with no alternative but to make drastic cuts in order to balance the books.
However, the most perverse aspect associated with this was when I read a local SNP MSP claiming that he “had limited influence over” the budget. Such an admission is simply staggering and highlights the lack of positive support from any constituency MSP.
A total of £300m has now been taken from North Lanarkshire since the SNP came to power in 2007 – almost half our annual budget.
Naively, I had hoped that, confronted with this reality, our SNP colleagues would finally do what their constituents elected them to do – stand up for the delivery of services in North Lanarkshire.
Instead, they continue to play the game of denial, distortion and deflection which we know all too well. Indeed, we even had the appalling sight of SNP councillors congratulating their party bosses in Edinburgh for giving North Lanarkshire £6m “extra” cash as part of the SNP/Green budget deal in the Scottish Parliament rather than focus on and highlight the remaining gap of over £24m.
The truth is, particularly with the Scottish Parliament elections just around the corner, the SNP in North Lanarkshire have no interest in really standing up for their communities. They’re far more interested in auditioning for their party bosses in Edinburgh by toeing the party line, all while the people who elected them suffer as a result of ongoing cuts to services and increased charges for school meals, community alarms and special uplifts.
However, our administration is committed – despite these SNP cuts – to invest in the future of North Lanarkshire and our budget protects and invest in our communities as best as we possibly can with less and less money.
We have the most ambitious council house building programme in Scotland, with 5000 new homes to be built by 2035; we are rebuilding every school built before 1996 to continue our schools modernisation programme.
At the policy and strategy committee meeting on March 19 we will bring forward these plans, which will develop designs for town and community hubs, approve initial designs for our town centres for consultation and set out a programme to radically transform our parks as we deliver on our ambition for North Lanarkshire to be the place to live, learn, work, invest and visit.
That we have managed to make such progress in such difficult times is nothing short of incredible; but the pace of progress can be halted just as quickly as it can be built.
Now is the time that the SNP accepted the reality faced by this council. If they are in any doubt about the real situation in North Lanarkshire, they only have to ask themselves one simple question: If the budget to North Lanarkshire has been increased, why did they bring forward millions of pounds worth of cuts to services in their budget proposals?
After 13 years of austerity, North Lanarkshire can’t afford another round of catastrophic cuts. Members of the public are starting to wonder, quite rightly, why they are paying more for Council Tax and service charges and why those they have elected to fight on their behalf are more interested in playing games in the Scottish Parliament, or in our council chamber, than standing up for their constituents.
At the time of writing this column, the final budget bill has still yet to pass the Scottish Parliament. But it is now clear that SNP MSPs and councillors in North Lanarkshire now have to make a choice about what is most important to them. They have a chance to truly stand up for their communities; or instead continue to be nothing more than voting fodder for their bosses in Edinburgh.
The choice they have to make is simple – their constituents or their careers. I think I know the answer, but I hope I am wrong.