Cash must be passed on to councils
Dear Editor It is completely unacceptable that the Scottish Government is not passing on money they have recieved for local government to local councils.
Stirling Council would have been in for around £3m of extra funding, money that could have helped protect vital services such as nurseries, social care and transport.
In context £3m is close to the cost of running a primary school for a year.
With so much lost revenue to the council and so many businesses and families to support through this pandemic the council is likely to have a hole in its budget this year and next year.
For the UK government to allocate money to councils and for the Scottish Government to withhold that funding shows what the SNP really thinks of local councils. Once again, significant funding received by the SNP from the UK government is not being passed onto front line services but instead is being held back by the SNP for unknown reasons.
The council has been carrying the can and doing most of the heavy lifting with our carers, binmen, engineers, teachers and many more offering vital services during this difficult time.
They deserve better than being short changed by the SNP.
The people of Stirling deserve better too.
Councllor Neil Benny leader of the Scottish Conservatives on Stirling Council and Dean Lockhart MSP, Mid Scotland and Fife Dear Editor Mary MaxwellIrving’s letter (Stirling Observer April 22) struck a chord.
What is happening to our language?
Is America the source of its deterioration?
How often do we hear “impact” instead of “effect” or “affect”, “I am (or was) sat” instead of “I am (or was) sitting”, the “so” favoured by the experts we hear during BBC broadcasts, “amount” where “number” is intended, to say nothing of the government speciality of “working closely together” instead of “co-operating” with “partners”, whether or not a contract exists?
It won’t be long before we are unable to understand each other at all.
Thank goodness we have the Stirling Observer’s impeccable English usage to turn to,
Mary Maxwell-Irving need not worry.
The reputation of Blairlogie has surely been further enhanced by her stout defence of the English language.
I say further, because language is not the only field in which Blairlogie excels. One only has to take its community council’s stance on the stupidity of Stirling Council’s introduction of advertising tawdry into the road system at roundabouts around the “city”.
Ignored, of course, but that’s par for the course.
I wonder whether the advertisers involved understand what they have done.
But I digress.
Andrew Fraser Riverside Stirling