Councilrenthike

CoastalSportingHub

With everyone in lockdown and families feeling the strain and pressure of homeschooling and the general need to ensure the health and safety of all, it got me to reminiscing of my experiences of Ayrshire from my younger years.

I am from a simple working class family in Glasgow, and Ayrshire was the place where many from Glasgow would take those trains (with the carriages you could close) down the coast to Billy Butlins, to the lovely town centre of Ayr with lovely floral gardens and grounds, to the gorgeous beaches of Troon, Prestwick and Ayr.

Even the school within Glasgow I attended, getting a bus to transport pupils to the Magnum Centre, that was one of the biggest water based attractions around at the time, was a big thing. Times have changed and these happy memories that gave me such a great childhood are no longer available in Ayshire.

So when I hear of ambitious plans for a new sports hub within Ayr with the capacity for lanes for swim teams to train, with the potential to have flumes and fun activities for families and regular swimmers alike then I start to think how good things can be again with such huge ambitions.

This is also true of the sea sports proposals for Troon, imagine the local possibilities to be trained by a national champion kite surfer, to do windsurfing and sea kayaking or sea swimming right on your doorstep.

It helps to attract not only locals who have the benefit of taking advantage of what is right on your doorstep but others from afar. But we know that’s not all the benefits, the people coming to these places from other parts of the country helps lift those areas with their local spending power.

It is initiatives like this that fill me with hope while raising a family in this lovely part of the world.

There is nothing better than seeing the kids (or grandkids) looking forward to doing these things, so I’m looking forward to the added happiness that will be provided when plans like this come to fruition.

Jason Dalziel, Troon

Homeschoolingtest 2021 has not started the way in which we had all hoped as further necessary restrictions have been put in place until the vaccine can be rolled out.

Personally, working full time from home and now solely attempting ‘home schooling’ with three children aged between 4-16 is an extremely daunting task.

A lot of great work and support is being given by the schools and nurseries as all parents do their best in these challenging circumstances.

A huge “hats off ” to all the parents out there juggling work and learning it’s tough, we can only do our best and in my own view, the most important thing is that our kids feel safe and happy until some normality returns to our lives. Don’t stress - we will get through this. Keep safe.

Cllr Siobhian Brown, mum, councillor and homeschooler to three

Ill-consideredremarks Comparing Nicola Sturgeon’s popularity to Donald Trump’s populism is both wrong and offensive.

I read with amazement and disgust last week, council depute leader Brian McGinlay’s claim that the violence in Washington encouraged by Trump was ‘due to a wider populist movement which is now here in Scotland via Ms Sturgeon.’

I know Scottish Labour finds it difficult to live with the soaring popularity of the SNP leader but that’s not the same thing as ‘populism’.

Hitler and Mussolini were ‘populists’ or ‘rabble-rousers’ as we used to call them.

Trump and Johnson are ‘populists’ because they use ‘populist’ strategies including wild unfounded rhetoric at every opportunity usually claiming they will return their countries to former greatness by blaming imaginary enemies such as Mexicans or the EU.

As we’ve seen, in this pandemic, they have no practical abilities to tackle problems.

In sharp contrast, Nicola Sturgeon is popular because, as the polls clearly show, she has worked with the people of Scotland to keep the infection level down to less than half of that in England and to ensure that our NHS as a whole will not be overwhelmed. Indeed when commenting, Mr McGinlay tells us more about his own populist leanings than owt else. Annie McIndoe, South Ayrshire

So this morning (January 20) the full council meeting of South Ayrshire Council, officers are seeking a rent rise of 1.5% based on their comprehensive rent consultation with its tenants.

Given the rate of survey return of 4.7 per cent even by Donald Trump’s logic not a ringing endorsement of any rise in rents .

But in the eyes of some that means 95.3 per cent of tenants are happy enough just to go with the flow ,well they do say you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s never going to be prom queen.

However, if the members choose to look at the figures in 2019/2020 the total amount of rental income from the provision of sheltered housing was £2,052,882.51 million, subtracting the total of the employee costs of providing this service of £1,167,656.00 million, it means the housing service made a profit on the provision of this service to the tune of £885,226.51 ,and yet officers wanted again to raise the rents for sheltered housing. But in the report based on the rent consultation survey results they have given up on that for now but say they will revisit it at a later date ,presumably that will be in 2024 as they have a three year cycle of rent setting . But wait, could the members do something for the tenants by using that £885,226.51 to reduce the rents of all sheltered houses which if done would reduce rent per fortnight by £68.55 or if they want every tenant to feel loved they could drop fortnightly rent to all tenants by £4.52 but wait, that would mean they don’t have to put any rents up all it. Does make you think, does it not, of what is possible.

Ian Stewart, Ayr