Council cabal doing whatever they like
Voices of the people fall on deaf ears
Back in late December, when this column predicted events that would dominate local headlines in 2019 – I took a punt that the Seafield/ Golf Academy dispute would be right up there with the big boys.
I use the word ‘ punt’ because it was essentially a bit of a long shot.
Daft though South Ayrshire Council might be, even I didn’t think it would be crass enough to attempt such a blatantly biased and brazen land grab of some of the finest golfing acres in Britain.
“They’d be mad to try that one” I thought at the time.
And well . . . now we know. South Ayrshire Council has gone mad.
Whether they are drunk on power or self- seeking aggrandisement – it doesn’t really matter.
What DOES matter is that we now have a Runaway Council – an uncontrollable, uncontainable cabal who are now doing . . . well . . . let’s be frank . . . doing whatever the hell they like.
When legitimate community council campaigners are swatted down as “serial objectors who won’t let us do anything” – you know you have a council that’s not fit for purpose.
Invulnerable and seemingly untouchable – it is now impervious to petitions and pleas.
It is immune to criticism – be it pot shots from this page or reasoned arguments in this newspaper’s letter’s page.
We can forgive a council that’s maybe eccentric, quirky and a little idiosyncratic.
What we can’t forgo is a council that’s deaf to the voices of the people it represents and blind to its own blundering mistakes.
We are now beyond the point of poking a stick at SAC and hoping for a reaction.
And, perhaps sadly, we have now reached the point where community councils may have to go to higher regulatory authorities to scrutinise the actions of an administration that is incapable of scrutinising itself.
It would be interesting to hear what an independent mind would make of the Seafield/ Golf Trust scenario.
Here, we have a council that wants to hijack a chunk of Common Good land and turn it into a golf academy.
That would be bad enough – but there’s more.
South Ayrshire Council wants to grant the golf academy to the Ayrshire Golf Trust - whose chairman is a South Ayrshire councillor!
Councillor Brian Connolly has done nothing illegal – and lists Ayrshire Golf Trust under his “Non Financial Interests”.
But if the application had come from Billy Connolly and not Brian Connolly – would it have gone this far? Why was a senior council officer at the time, Jill Cronin, calling it “a really exciting opportunity” the moment Brian Connolly unveiled the project – and two years before last week’s vote of approval?
Why has SAC refused to consider a different site?
Why has SAC refused to uphold objections from TWO well respected Community Councils?
Why is the Ayrshire Golf Trust – of all people – hell bent on losing some of Ayrshire’s most loved golf holes?
What we have here is a council stripping common good land from the common good and doing double somersaults to get this absurd, unwanted development across the line.
The fact that the applicants’ chairman also chairs two South Ayrshire Council committees is but a mere coincidence!
Thanfully, Fort, Seafield and Wallacetown Community Council – and Alloway and Doonfoot – are doing something about it.
By next week, I will hopefully have details of an online petition to present to SAC - and to the Sheriff who is legally required to “sign off” Common Good land on the meantime, I’d be pleased to make a personal donation of £ 100 to any “Save Seafield” fighting fund launched by any of the community councils involved. And a final question – to Councillor Saxton.
If community councils are “serial objectors” to “anything” SAC wants to do . . . is there not a wee clue there somewhere?