Residents in favour of flats

wI refer readers to the high rise flats, residents meeting at Ayr Auld Kirk on July 31 called by Fort Seafield and Wallcetoun Community Council.

Prior to the meeting, I thought the request by the community council to be part of the decision making process, not at all unreasonable following the debacle of the council offices project in the High Street and of course not seeing any reason whatsoever to go via the demolishing route. Although portrayed by the council in their response that consultation took place, I felt uneasy with their process. The community council has every right to be a participant outwith the Residents Association or in conjunction with it. They represent totally different entities and I know of many people in Ayr who are unaware of the already made decision to demolish, to their subsequent horror. It might have been at least courteous to at least inform of your intentions and gauge Ayr reaction. By not allowing participation, it became very apparent that there was already a council agenda and it did not matter that ‘ our people’, ‘ our place’ or anyone’s input was going to get in the way. Making decisions without all or a proper constituted substantiated valuation of the works is a bit naive of the Leadership Panel and questionable. As soon as you talked about meeting the residents face to face in their flats carried out by council housing officers, I couldn’t help but think here we go again, an illusion of democracy; they will be cajoled into giving answers that can be construed into some sort of palatable statistic to suit the council agenda for demolition. My suspicions were confirmed at the meeting where several residents complained of the nature of questioning, and the subsequent manipulation of their answers by suggested comments put forward by the officials. They said they were not informed that the outcome of their cordial chat and that their views were to form part of statistical answers and be counted towards a vote that would help the council to determine their decision for demolition, otherwise their answers would have been very much different. This kind of data gathering is quite unacceptable and not transparent and they now feel duped. For example it was said by a council questioner, would you like to move into a brand new flat in Peebles Street, inferring that would be possible and ring fenced. The respondent in this instance was suited to such a move, replied that would be nice. This response was taken and logged as a person who wants to leave the flats and chalked up for demolition. This was far from the truth; the respondent didn’t want the flats to be demolished, nor did he dislike them, nor was he unhappy living there and has subsequently learnt that there are no vacancies in the Peebles Street flats any longer. It should have been recorded as a stay. Talk about the distress caused to residents and the anger that was displayed to the full at this meeting. It was shameful that, all one poor elderly lady wanted to know, was if she could go ahead and paint her living room. This is no way to treat people by creating unnecessary instability and uncertainty by advocating demolition of sound buildings whose only need is the normal programmed refurbishment and the potential loss of perfectly good housing stock for which people queue to get into. I think this issue is of sufficient seriousness that Scottish Government agencies need to be involved and figures given by council officials do not seem to add up. I think this decision would go against the views of the majority of Ayr residents who in this instance, the council has chosen not to include for obvious reasons. An issue of this magnitude is not merely down to who wants to stay and who wants to leave, with an already queue for willing occupants to be replaced by substantially fewer units on site is madness. Councillors decided to stay away from the meeting, but our MP was there to witness all the statements made, damming the decision to demolish. There was even a passionate suggestion made to wait for the next council elections.

Andrew Russell, Alloway & Doonfoot Commmunity Council