TOM JOHNSTON Extra funds should help tackle virus

North Lanarkshire Council has received an extra £6 million from the Scottish Government.

The money is a belated part of the council budget funding; council officers wanted this cash simply to go straight into council reserves funds.

Instead,the SNP group called a special council meeting so that elected members can decide what to do with this extra money.

The SNP group wish £5 million of this £ 6 million to be spent on tackling the coronavirus challenge.

Firstly, £3 million should go straight into reserves to meet the new challenges as council officials wish; secondly, we wish £505,000 for health and social care to deal with additional coronavirus pressures on the NHS; and thirdly, we want to abolish Labour’s new charges for community alarms issued to elderly and vulnerable people living alone.

We also wish to reverse Labour’s new car parking charges for council-owned car parks.

Fast- moving developments with the covid- 19 threat have rendered some council budget decisions already obsolete. Across the country, neighbourhood volunteers are now forming to visit the elderly living alone in self-isolation.

It is, therefore, foolish to be charging for their personal alarms; especially when it is known that charging leads to up to 15 per cent of users handing their personal alarms back to the council. In this crisis we should be trying to expand the use of personal alarms.

Likewise with parking charges. In most of North Lanarkshire,charging will hit footfall; this will badly hit small, local businesses in Airdrie and Coatbridge.

The UK Chancellor is channelling millions to relieve small businesses. So why should the council be undermining this policy by penalising small businesses?

Of the remaining £1 million, the SNP group wishes to spend £748,000 saving the popular Kilbowie outdoor centre from closure.

More than 12,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the reversal of the Labour-Tory-independent decision to close Kilbowie.

The SNP-run Glasgow City Council, with support from Labour and other parties, has just reversed its budget decision to close Blairvadach outdoor centre, used by Glasgow’s children; Glasgow has used the extra cash they got from the Scottish Government to save their centre and North Lanarkshire Council should do likewise.

The SNP group voted against closing Kilbowie and car parking charges. The people of North Lanarkshire have shown very strong feelings on both of these issues.

Had we been aware of the extra £ 6 million at the time of the budget last month, it is very likely these two cuts would have been totally unacceptable. We now have the cash to reverse them.

And a further £245,000 should be used to reverse the council budget’s music tuition cuts.

Making his feelings known Councillor Johnston