We have a chance to make a difference

South Lanarkshire Council’s new administration has shared its plans for the next five years.

And new council leader Joe Fagan pledged to help locals tackle the cost of living crisis.

He said:“We have to ramp up the council’s response to the climate emergency, with a strengthened Climate Change Committee and a greener capital spending programme.

“We need to help people facing a cost of living crisis by retrofitting homes and helping families with bills.

“I am keen to see the School Clothing Grant extended to threeand four-year-olds.

“I also think that we need stronger, more visible leadership on the economic crisis locally.”

Cllr Fagen continued: “Everywhere I go in South Lanarkshire people feel like their town or their village has seen its best days already. That’s a damning indictment of austerity and the state of politics right now.

“Councils can’t do everything, especially not when budgets have been slashed.

“But we have to do everything we can to tackle that sense of decline and turn our communities around.

“That means finding the resources to inject into the frontline services and using council spending power to back local jobs and town centres.

“We will also agitate for better bus services under public control through Strathclyde Partnership forTransport.”

He added:“We have to turn around years of decline while battling a funding crisis, rising inflation and a climate emergency.

“I hope that this administration goes the distance and that we grow our numbers.

“We will look to win over progressive councillors who did not support us and aim to win any by-elections that might occur in this term.

“But we need to govern as if this could all end tomorrow. We have to throw ourselves into the job and make as much of a difference as we can while this lasts.

“I would rather lead a radical, reforming council for five months than preside over the drift and decline of the past five years.

“We have a chance to make a difference and we have got to make the most of it.”

We need to govern as if it could all end tomorrow Cllr Joe Fagen