DEAL Council has let Renfrewshire down
We rely on councils to run properly and well those services that keep our communities safe, clean, and good-quality places to live. When the un-flashy but vital services and amenities that councils are supposed to provide start to break down, people’s lives can quickly become miserable. On this measure alone, the administration has badly let down far too many of its residents.
Just look at the state of the roads. Just look at the state of the bins, and of the drains.
Merely in recent months, the PDE has reported on shocking individual cases. A Paisley resident whose bins went uncollected for no less than 12 weeks in a row, despite multiple complaints.
Drains in such a state of longterm neglect and disrepair that the effects of recent floods were hugely exacerbated: one couple’s home devastated by the council’s failure to deal with three blocked drains on their road alone. Roads full of potholes and cheap, botched repair jobs. A Paisley resident’s bedroom ceiling that collapsed having waited six years for the council to repair it.
And before the last council elections in 2017, the SNP promised to clean up Renfrewshire. How is that going?
That promise was broken when they scrapped fortnightly grey bin collections and made them three weekly - wasting over £1 million on new bins in the process.
The resulting amount of rubbish in Renfrewshire streets and neighbourhoods is now such that the council resorts to relying on volunteers and schoolkids to pick up rubbish. These citizen efforts are to be commended, but the fact that the administration is relying on them to clean the streets is a huge indictment.
I could go on. What a sorry state of affairs. What a betrayal of Renfrewshire residents.
This administration is not only failing to get the basics right but is lacking vision for our area.
This year 2021, Paisley was supposed to be UK City of Culture, an initiative pioneered by the previous Labour administration.
Even though the town missed out, the bid itself lifted the confidence of the community. It conjured a vision of what our community could be. Outwardlooking, thriving, creative, a place where people come to visit. Where is that ambition now? SNP councillors have bizarrely decided not even to bother competing for city status as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
As a result, at least one of Greenock, Irvine, Elgin, Oban, Livingston, Dumfries, Dunfermline and St. Andrews is likely to become a city – but not Paisley. This is a ludicrous situation and our community is being let down. What on earth is going on?
With elections coming up next year, could they just not be bothered?
Renfrewshire has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic. It needs investment, and a fair deal. Instead, we have an administration that has contentedly gone along with a centrally imposed real-terms budget cut of almost £29.5 million between 2014/15 and 2020/21 – a massive 7.5 per cent reduction in the money available to keep vital public services running across Renfrewshire.
SNP councillors have proven themselves completely unwilling to stand up for Renfrewshire residents in their dealings with their bosses in Edinburgh.
Renfrewshire needs a council, and councillors, who will be local champions: who will stand up for local services rather than nodding through cuts, and who will put the needs of residents before ideological affiliation.
Remember this when the SNP in Renfrewshire come looking for your vote.
Renfrewshire deserves better.