Local Eletions - Questions to candidates

[Kintyre Forum News]

Following on from TYM's great post what questions would you like to ask our candidates who are standing at the local election next Thursday?

We'll collate these and post them

KFN

[smiles]

What are your top priorities for Campbeltown and south Kintyre?

[Sheik Yir Erse]

What's your position on Wind Turbines?

[John S]

What are your top priorities for Campbeltown and south Kintyre?

There is a lot that can be said about priorities, but I intend to keep it brief and am happy to answer any specific points in more detail. My top three in no order are -

Protecting the most vulnerable people in our communities against budget cuts.
Improving opportunities for employment.
Improving how South Kintyre is connected to the rest of the country by road, sea, air and technologically.

It is easy to make priorities but having the ability to deliver on them depends a lot on how you can work with the community, with other Councillors, other authorities and with the Scottish Government, our manifesto outlines how we intend to do that. The SNP manifesto for Argyll and Bute can be found at:

http://placetobeproud.org/

and the SNP Governments Local Government Manifesto for Jobs, Families and Fairness has also been launched

http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/20 ... d-fairness.

These provide the commitments that we make to all our communities over the next 4 years if we form the ruling administration.

[John S]

What's your position on Wind Turbines?

I tilt at them...

No. I am generally in favour of further development of renewable energy of all kinds in Argyll and Bute however they must be appropriate, I will campaign vigorously against proposals which are roundly rejected by the local communities affected as I did with the off shore proposal at Machrihanish.

[Anne Baird]

What are your top priorities for Campbeltown and south Kintyre?

This is too huge a question for a really comprehensive answer but I'll lay down the markers I use. Money is scarce so I won't promise things that aren't achievable. I do however see a lot that IS achievable.

My first priority isn't for Campeltown and Kintyre alone but it's the most relevant. The Council has to be much more efficient and cost-productive. Not a single penny should be spent on anything that can't be proved to have a real benefit to the region. No vanity projects, pre-election bonanzas, or pointless meetings that could easily be done by video-conferencing. The list is too long for here, but that's the very first thing that has to be done. We need to stop every form of waste in order to free up funds for the things we really NEED.

Then for Campbeltown and Kintyre:

1. Stop the rot. I'd aim all my energies toward ensuring that the area doesn't lose jobs or infrastructure. We have little enough compared with other towns in the region and we can't afford to be losing more.

2. Bring people with buying power in. That means sorting out our transport problems; our roads and our ferry links. If we didn't have West Coast Motors we'd be as well in the mid Atlantic. It also means making the best of what we have and promoting it in every way we can - our landscape and heritage are our greatest assets and the council hasn't paid much heed to either. It may not have much money to spend but the council could surely change its attitude and at least support the huge efforts of the community.

3. Generate employment. The whole idea of bringing in some massive company to provide employment in the area is long since discredited. We need smaller, more versatile employers and investment and support for local business. We need to think hard about the skills we have, attract businesses to suit and fill any gaps with appropriate training. This can only be done by establishing good working partnerships with other agencies like HIE and Argyll College. The people of the area, the folk who know how South Kintyre ticks, must be at the centre of those partnerships.

I could go on, but that's the crux of it. Stabilise, fund, regenerate.

[Anne Baird]

What's your position on Wind Turbines?

I'm all in favour of renewable energy but this area depends heavily on tourism and I'll fight tooth and nail against anything, wind turbines included, that puts any more obstacles in the way of it.

Where an appropriate site is found and agreed on by a community, the Council should support that community to ensure it gets the maximum possible benefit from the deal.

In the long run I think water will be a more reliable and less obtrusive source of energy and would support the research that will make it viable.

[D.H]

What are your top priorities for Campbeltown and south Kintyre?

Yes this is a huge question isn't it? The Council is strapped for cash so it is more about fighting for the fair share for this corner of Scotland. You can only challenge the correct financial allocation and recognition of needs here by using facts and reasoned argument, linking with like minded Councils and organisations to strengthen mutually beneficial changes.

1. Roads and other infrastructure.

I want to see the Council getting recognition for Campbeltown that the A83 should be a trunk road all the way down, as it should be, making it the financial responsibility of the the Scottish Govt and freeing up cash allocated for this main artery road to be spent on other Council roads. I also want to see the Rest and be Thankful prioritised by the Scottish Govt over the vanity 2nd Forth Road Bridge project which is coming in at £2,300 million of tax payers money. We pay taxes too.

I want to see a Calmac car ferry service running between Campbeltown, Ayrshire, and Northern Ireland. The cross marketing from people visiting other parts of Scotland would be immense and Calmac is owned by the Govt so there would be some influence through elected representatives. It has amazed me that there has been another review of whether the ferry is needed after all this time. If you watch 'In the Loop' or if you used to watch 'Yes, Minister' you will remember that setting up reviews was shorthand for kicking an idea into the long grass.

3G mobile signals are essential in modern living and tourism and I think the Council should work with other rural Councils to push for the licence for operators to not be renewed unless they provide adequate services for rural areas first.

Broadband is another key infrastructure that needs upgraded to enable people to live and work in rural areas.

2. Rural education.
The Council needs to rebuild trust with rural communities and look at how the schools can be better used by the community as a resource. e.g. Enabling the community to access the better broadband video conferencing for work and learning, or allowing vetted volunteers to be keyholders for community activity use. I think the Council needs to look at how it can encourage more people to move into rural areas to stem to flow of families leaving the areas. In my area, Southend, in the last seven years 15% of working age women have left the area, taking their children with them. In contrast in the same period the Scottish population of working age women has increased by 5%. This is a serious decline that bucks the national trend.

I think the Council should be doing more to offer work placements for pupils at school to enable them to work out what kind of work they might do, motivating them more to focus at school, and gaining an insight into the value of a work ethic.

If we are trying to set up a hub for renewables does it not make sense to be attracting universities to set up research and development campuses in Kintyre?

3. Economic development.
The Economic development wing of the Council, along with the enterprise company and the Scottish Govt seem more focused on attracting, financially flush big employers in to the area with wads of cash whilst largely ignoring community grown social enterprises (businesses without shareholders)and small businesses. If you are a big company it is easy to set up, get support and cash whilst long term, local, social enterprises have to go to a variety of funding bodies and draw up endless business plans and needs assessments over many years to access a lot less cash. Several big employers who have moved into Kintyre have been short lived and further devastated the community on shutting up shop after hoovering up the cash to move on to somewhere else, with more subsidy. Remember Vestas getting £19 Million of tax payers money and spending only £16 million on wages? How many jobs did they say they would create and how many did they actually?

Given that in Kintyre the percentage of self employed people in almost three times the national average of 6.6% it seems strange that there is no Govt support for people starting up in business based locally in Campbeltown. I volunteered for Opportunity Kintyre as it provided locally based support but the funding was not renewed by the Scottish Govt which seems bizarre as the figures and feedback from people who started or stayed in business as a result of the support was very healthy. I want to see that support reinstated as an investment in people with ideas.

Tourism is another key economic industry in Kintyre that is under resourced. The area is not promoted by Visit Scotland or the Council. Most people think the Mull of Kintyre is on Mull. Nowadays there are a variety of creative methods to do this but it is largely ignored. Kintyre shops could be promoted through utilising volunteers in Kintyre and in other parts of Britain, working with businesses here and the Council to promote the unique shops and the people that run them as a lot of visitors want to experience a place not just look at it from a bus. The people of Kintyre is one of its greatest assets and their friendliness is not promoted online or with leaflets to encourage people to come to a real town not a 'Clone Town', which most other town centres suffer from.

4. Vulnerable people.
I think it is very important that the most vulnerable in our community are not forgotten as they are the least likely to shout loudest for their needs. My background is in Community Development, education, and working with vulnerable groups who are feeling the squeeze from all directions for getting support and maintaining key services.

5. Council structure.
I want to see the Council structure being more democratic, with Council wide matters being decided by all Councillors not just a few. I want to look at how whistleblowing and complaints can be handled outside of the Council as people are likely to be complaining to a friend of the person they are complaining about. I want to see people who have abused their position and cost the Council millions, as appears in the recent school closure proposals fiasco, being sanctioned, and if appropriate sacked.

I am also planning to donate 15% of my Councillor salary to local charities to help them in this hard time and help them lever in more money by showing direct support. I want to encourage more Councillors and higher paid staff to do the same.

[D.H]

What's your position on Wind Turbines?

I am quite ambivalent about wind turbines. I think it is more about where they are placed, the size, and views of the community directly affected. I personally don't find them ugly but I did object to the massive offshore windfarm as I thought it was badly placed and too large a farm of turbines.

The reality is that we all use too much energy and the planet's energy resources are finite so we have to come up with some solutions. Like Anne I suspect that tidal or small scale hydro will be the way forward. I'd like to see the Scottish Govt invest in a plant locally to develop, make and fit domestic renewables at cheaper prices on a mass scale that can reduce the amount of energy needed to be sourced from the grid. I am sure it is cheaper to insulate and fit a mix of renewables on people's homes than line the pockets of big energy corporations through subsidies and building new nuclear power stations.

[Isa]

After receiving Robert Graham's leaflet that came through the door this morning I decided to read again all flyers that had been delivered.

Like most of them Robert has a few good points that the electorate will have empathy with but the one that stood out was Rory Colville's. In light of all the jobs he has created over the past few years I hope he has kept one for himself because I think the wee soul will need it.

[D.H]

Hi Isa,

Yes Rory stands out for the wrong reasons in most of the rural communities around Argyll, particularly in Southend. What Rory doesn't mention on his leaflet is that a week after attending a public meeting in Southend to say that he disagreed with the SNP coalition led rural school closure proposals in the strongest terms he flip flopped to cross the floor on the day to vote to pass the proposals. The SNP realising it was political suicide to take the proposals further conveniently stepped back and allowed the Liberals to form a coalition. A week later Rory was rewarded with a spokesperson position.

These dodgy school closure proposals have estimated to cost the Council millions (the Council can't even quantify the full cost as far as I know)and I, like many other parents, tried to stop this process with logic, facts and research the first day that we received a letter telling us our local school could close in six months. Even if the closures had gone ahead the Council would have lost money from losing valuable Scottish Government funding.

Not really something that our Councillors should be proud of.

[John S]

The SNP realising it was political suicide to take the proposals further conveniently stepped back and allowed the Liberals to form a coalition. A week later Rory was rewarded with a spokesperson position.

Deirdre your wrong, and you must be the only person involved in the school closures who believes this. The SNP left the coalition because we could not persuade our then coalition partners, independent councilors just like you aspire to be, that the proposals were flawed.

You have refused to say, if elected as an independent Councillor would you join a coalition, Would you take the gold pieces if Dick Walsh came calling? People deserve to know if you are any different from Rory, Would you work in coalition with the Alliance of Independent Councillors?

[Isa]

DH
I, like many of the electorate were very surprised that closing Southend was even a consideration. This should never happen and I would support any campaign to keep it open but there has to be common sense when it comes to some of the others.

You have 3 primary schools between Glenbar and Clachan in a thirteen mile stretch. One of them should go and out of the school role in Drumlemble I am led to believe that only 5 are in the catchment area and most of the ones outside the catchment area who are on the roll are closer to Castlehill and Dalintober than they are to Drumlemble.

It's all very well speaking about rural schools being important but we all live rurally here and the pupils all end up in the Grammar in Campbeltown and still classed as rural because that is what Kintyre....rural so why do we need to have this debate about a school like Drumlemble that is no more than 5 minutes from Castlehill being kept open every time this comes up. If it is so important to parents that their child does not go to Castlehill or Dalintober then let them go to Southend. After all the powers that be were proposing to put the Southend children to Drumlemble if Southend closed so if it is acceptable one way then it should be just as acceptable the other.

I am told that a councllors salary is £16.000 and on top of that Rory is allegedly paid another £10.000. Are you saying that the extra ten thousand a year was his reward for "flip flopping" across the floor?

£26.000 a year is a lot of money for "flip flopping"

[Mary G]

The SNP left the coalition because we could not persuade our then coalition partners, independent councilors just like you aspire to be, that the proposals were flawed.

John, you sound like you are trying to re-write history here. It was an SNP colleague of yours, Councillor Strong, who was the convener of the Education committee that came up with the proposals.

You may now believe that your own proposals were flawed, but better to say just that than blame your erstwhile coalition partners for the flaws in what were originally SNP closure plans.

[Anne Baird]

The SNP left the coalition because we could not persuade our then coalition partners, independent councilors just like you aspire to be, that the proposals were flawed.

John, you sound like you are trying to re-write history here. It was an SNP colleague of yours, Councillor Strong, who was the convener of the Education committee that came up with the proposals.

You many now believe that your own proposals were flawed, but better to say just that than blame your erstwhile coalition partners for the flaws in what were originally SNP closure plans.

Mary, this is mistaken and is evidence only that you've fallen for the Lib Dem's sorry mantra. More than a year ago a bundle of FOI requests made by ARSN proved that Isobel Strong knew nothing of the school closures until the eleventh hour, at which point the SNP group began debate with the Alliance of Independents. The Alliance councillors were completely intransigent so the SNP group walked out. Sadly the Lib Dems walked in. Dick Walsh was the only councillor involved in the initial proceedings and proposals and closures were driven entirely by him. We still have the FOI material on record so if you need to see it let us know.

ARSN has gone to some lengths to retain its non-political status and, as well as many non-political members, has members and friends in the Conservative and Unionist Party, Labour Party and the SNP. There's a concensus on the issue and acknowledgement of the efforts of Jackie Baillie, Jamie McGrigor, Mike McKenzie and Michael Russell. You can see candidates from those parties, and a number of independent candidates signing up to the ARSN statement here http://arsn.org/councillors-supporting-arsn-statement/. The Lib Dem mantra seems to be the only dissent but the FOI material was distributed widely and few believe it to be anything other than a smoke screen for their own position.

There's no Labour candidate in South Kintyre and Bob Chicken is known to people in the Kintyre and the Islands area as a schools/education friendly candidate. It's hard to see how this "rewriting" would assist him as he's already a superb candidate who I hope will win on his own strengths.