Pupils go on strike over youth cuts plan

HUNDREDS of pupils in high schools across Argyll and Bute went on strike in protest over proposed council cuts to youth services.

Banner waving pupils in Oban, along with pupils in Dunoon, Campbeltown, Lochgilphead, Tarbert and Helensburgh, spoke with one voice as they made their feelings known.

A total of £330,000 of youth and adult learning services are in danger of being axed, with the loss of 17 part-time jobs, at Argyll and Bute Council’s budget meeting today.

In Oban more than 500 pupils gave lessons a miss to hold a 20-minute strike at the high school’s outdoor sports pitch.

Armed with banners saying Change Our Lives Not Our Budget and Save ABYS (Argyll and Bute Youth Services), the message from the young people was loud and clear.

Oban Councillor Roddy Mccuish said: “It’s very refreshing to see our young people taking an interest in the council budget and to see them taking an interest in local democracy.”

But he added: “Councils all over Scotland are in an extremely difficult position.

“Sometimes we have to look at ways of delivering the service better by reorganisation.”

However, Councillor Donald Kelly, from Campbeltown, a member of the council’s Argyll First Group, said his group would be proposing an alternative budget.

Councillor Kelly said: “A lot of the most disadvantaged people need these services and to start cutting services like these is disgraceful, these are soft targets.”