Up in arms at common good cash proposal

Dear Editor

I was completely astonished to see a proposal by Perth and Kinross Council in your paper ‘New era at council?’ (PA April 25) that they would consider amalgamating all ten of the common good funds in Perth and Kinross.

No doubt it is the brainchild of some disgruntled council officer who sees the management of such funds as an irritation and an inconvenience.

I would just like to say very clearly that if council officers try to develop this idea further after the election next week, that they will have the communities of half of Perth and Kinross up in arms against them, and woe betide any political party grouping who think this might be an idea worth pursuing. It is a centralisation too far, way too far.

If Perth and Kinross Council find themselves inconvenienced by having to administer these funds, then there is an easy way of dealing with that. Hand responsibility for them back to the towns concerned, and let them be managed more locally and more effectively.

For the interest of your readers, in addition to Perth, the towns in Perth & Kinross with Common Good funds are Aberfeldy, Abernethy, Alyth, Auchterarder, Blairgowrie, Coupar Angus, Crieff, Kinross and Pitlochry.

These funds are an important link with the past, are part of our cultural and community heritage, and they could easily be modernised and made useful for the 21st century if anyone had the vision and interest to do this. Victor Clements Aberfeldy