Cllr John Bell North Ayrshire

Much has been written about the SNPs abandoning manifesto committments. The fact that they had to do it was no real surprise as they were obviously unaffordable at the time, the fact that the press let them off so lightly is the interesting factor. First time buyers grant, class sizes of 18, cancelling student debt, 1000 more police, the list of policies they have thrown away is huge, their activists claim that it is ok to produce a manifesto you dont plan to keep.

I decided to look at the election committments from the local labour party as a contrast.

• Labour will Keep Council Tax rises below inflation for the next 4 years. 
• To retain Housing Stock under council control. 
• To continue to provide good quality housing for rent by effective Estate Management, and regular maintenance.
• Work in partnership with all agencies to ensure a safer community.
• CCTV will be supported and expanded.
• Continue to fight for upgrade of A737
• We will lobby for improved rail services and for improved Park and Ride at Glengarnock.
• Lobby for increased Roads and Lighting maintenance.
• Continue to Urge Scottish Enterprise to progress Lochshore regeneration plan.
• We will invest in our Town Centres.
• We will lobby all agencies for jobs to be relocated and created in North Ayrshire.
• We will increase spending on adaptations to allow people to stay in their own homes.
• We will encourage and develop Home Care Services.
• John Bell & Donald Reid support the aims and objectives of the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park, and oppose contrary developments.
• We will reduce waste going to landfill.

In contrast to the SNP we have kept our promises and if we had not lost our local MSP I'm sure we could have delivered more. The much needed A737 is a case in point, National government allowed the SNP version to bring forward roads spending to fight the recession, they chose to spend in the North East of Scotland rather than North Ayrshire. More and more we are seeing the result of losing a local MSP, with the SNP version scurrying around trying to be the best councillor, but being totally ineffective as an MSP, allowing the spending to go to the SNP heartland in the North East instead of fighting for the projects we need here. No money for flood prevention, the Lochshore project allowed to wither due to SNP Dogma. The Labour party will stand by our pledges and fight for these projects, we will fight to get Garnock Academy upgraded, we have managed to get more social housing  with the CHA build on Largs Road which I was proud to help name Jennings Gardens.

I've lost the habit of updating this, but since for one I've had some good news it seems the ideal time to do it.

Firstly the news came through that the SNP government has finally made some funding available for school improvements. The program in North Ayrshire came to a grinding halt while they messed about with Scottish Futures Trusts before finally coming to the conclusion that the late model PPP wasn't so bad after all. The government are still trying to take the credit for the schools programs started by the previous Labour Administration. It will be another year or two before the building program totally dries up due to the SNP inaction and no doubt they will bluff through it.

North Ayrshire Council leader David O'Neil is to write to Education Minister Fiona Hyslop in a bid to secure a share of the £800 million of government money earmarked for new school build programmes. Now that we finally see an opportunity to continue our investment in schools we need to lobby the Scottish government to try and get our share of the funding. Recent government spending has been skewed to the SNP heartlands in the North East and we have lost out on roads and housing money. Garnock Academy is one of the schools likely to be replaced if the council can secure the funding this time.

On Friday evening 26th I had the honour of opening the new Gallery in Kilbirnie Library. The Gallery was suggested when the decision was taken to turn the former Youth and Community Wing at Garnock Academy, which was being used as the Valley Arc ats centre,at Garnock Academy into a skill centre. A good turn out was present to view the inaugural exhibition by Adam McLean  of the Art of Tarot. Adam has amassed a large collection of Tarot card sets and the exhibition fresh from being viewed at Glasgow Arts school was of Japanese cards and included childrens sets, it seemed curious to me until Adam explained that it does not have the same occult connotations there as Japan is not a Christian country.

 A mixed month with both good and bad news. Mp Katy Clark gave birth safely to baby girl and the long campaign to have a path beween Glengarnock and Beith has finally come to fruition as SPT have agreed to fund the project to install a cycleway and footpath  between Longbar and the Manrahead roundabout. 

The SNP Scottish Government passed their Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill but unfortunately have not identified funding for the major works needed in Kilbirnie and Glengarnock, there are concerns that the budget has been cut in an effort to fund an additional Forth Bridge. A number of residents have been raising issues of Police respose with me and I raised it at the local area committee the Police are going to get the area superintendant to report to the next meeting

The BBC website today carries a story, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7976409.stm  on how Kilbirnie has the second highest number of nominations for Scotlands town most in need of regeneration. This is a campaign, ironically run by the Tories who made no attempt to regenerate the town when in power, to publicise  a £60million budget identified by the Scottish Parliament in this years budget.

The idea is thes nominations are made by local people for their own town and it is gratifying that enough local Kilbirnie residents were able to get Kilbirnie on the board. Whether this will be enough to make a difference when any money is allocated remains to be seen.

Kilbirnies main chance for regeneration lay in the Lochshore project where a proportion of the profits from the scheme were to be allocated to a Kilbirnie and Glengarnock Regeneration Fund. The Lochshore Project has been stalled for two years with the SNP Governments preoccupation with splitting Scottish Enterprise, and now we have a credit crunch which will again delay the project and most likely the income to the Fund if and when the scheme progresses. Once again SNP Dogma gets before helping the residents of North Ayrshire.

The SNP Government has overturned North Ayrshire Councils decision to approve planning permission for a windfarm at Kelburn estate. 

Its not often I agree with Largs Local newspaper editor Drew Cochrane but just this once I'll give you his take on it.

"Published: Wednesday, 4th March, 2009 12:30 SNP dilemma blowing in the wind...THE ONLY way that the SNP government will achieve their target of Scotland having 50 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 will be to allow every wind farm application to go through. An indication of Alex Salmond's determination to make the country rich in renewables is the decision to overturn North Ayrshire Council's refusal of the wind turbines on the hills of Kelburn Estate."

This is the Alex Salmond who stated in Kilbirnie that he was against windfarms in the regional park, and with a local SNP MSP who seems able to put forward parliamentary motions on his daughters homework but not on issues on which he made a commitment to get elected. The electorate are beginning to realise SNP promises are worth nothing and their political dogma gets in the way of helping their constituents.