We’re left with country’s WORST railway station
Council leaders sat on their hands for five years
This week I’d like to extend an invitation to our former council leader, Mr Bill McIntosh, to join me on a little rail trip. Leaving from his home town of Troon, it should be a pleasant enough journey . . . until we get to our destination in Ayr. Bill will be able to witness firsthand the station’s concourse, coffee stall, newsagent and ticket office – cordoned off like a chemical attack crime scene in Salisbury. He’ll see the old and young, the fit and the frail - many laden with babies, prams or shopping – struggle over the wooden footbridge to the station’s only exit. God knows what happens to those is a wheelchair. He can then watch breathless passengers make another trek up a flight of steps before being forced to cross one of Ayr’s busiest arterial roads . . . without so much as a pedestrian crossing. Yes – welcome to Ayr, Mr McIntosh. THIS . . . is the Ayr you left us. Of course, my invitation is figurative. It would fittingly extend to all the other South Ayrshire councillors, elected in 2012, who sat on their hands for five years as Ayr Station Hotel rotted in front of their eyes. I’ve plucked Mr McIntosh from the pile because he got tens of thousands of pounds more than the others – allegedly for “increased responsibilities”. But I doubt he’s feeling a tu’pence worth of guilt. I’d also have invited Eileen Howat, South Ayrshire’s chief executive since 2013. But she’s already proven that a conscience isn’t part of her character. At the height of the holiday season, in the best summer weather in living memory – Scotland’s premier beach resort town has the most inadequate railway station in the country. What a shambles. What a shame. The names McIntosh and Howat are significant for other reasons. This entire fiasco has been caused by a lack of real leadership ( yes, that’s you Bill) and an administration that changes its underwear at the very whisper of the words “legal costs” ( that will be you, Eileen). Bill McIntosh’s cosy coalition took on the reckless, renegade Malaysian hotel owners with all the firepower we could expect from a retired bank manager and his obsequious “Dad’s Army”. And Eileen Howat, the bean counter who would have to fund the financial consequences of any legal battle, cowered behind her desk waiting for it all to go away. They both had plenty of time – and warning - to do the right thing. It’s five years since the Station Hotel’s plight was first highlighted on this page. I used to make jokes about it entering the ‘ Best Roof Garden’ section at Ayr Flower Show - or that the tallest tree in Scotland was the silver birch growing out the window of room 406. But nobody’s laughing now. And let’s not forget that the majority of that 2012 council administration is still in power.
It’s five years since the Station Hotel’s plight was first highlighted on this page