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Introduction
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Successes
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It certainly
doesn’t feel like a year has passed since the May 3rd elections,
2007.
What a
year it has been:
- Labour finally lost control
of South Lanarkshire Council and they have no option but to work with
the Conservative group to remain leading group.
- The rural community in South Lanarkshire is at the heart of the
conservative group in South Lanarkshire and without our commitment,
there would never have been a rural task-force, which now meets
regularly to ensure the large rural area’s of our council get the
attention they deserve. This includes my ward, (five – Avondale &
Stonehouse).
- Planning applications no
longer get pushed through without even a question being asked. If a
planning application is not properly considered, it can no longer pass
the council committee and this has been evident in a number of high
profile applications in both East Kilbride and here in Strathaven.
- Most recently, we’ve all
heard about the £100+ million investment in our roads. Without constant
pushing from the Conservative group in council, you would see the
continuing decay of our roads across the rural areas of Avondale.
It
certainly wasn’t all good. During the summer of 2007, we had hoped to see a
delay in the closure of Strathaven Academy and the 2-year decant to Crosshouse
campus in East
Kilbride.
Labour was certainly not going to support a re-think and without the full
support of SNP, the paper prepared by Bill Holman and Lynn Filshie was
doomed. My last option was to get an independent report produced to look into
the councils decision to rebuild Strathaven Academy and carry out the 2-year decant.
As we all know, this paper opened a Pandora’s box of failures by the previous
council administration. While disappointing that this was never going to help
Strathaven Academy, it will ensure the council never
get away with this disgraceful policy of ignoring the local people again!
On the
positive side, the Strathaven Academy pupil’s education continued to
improve with even more awards for the school and pupils. While I continue to
monitor the schools progress and decant process, I would like to praise the
all teachers, pupils and their parents for their patience and we all look
forward to the new Strathaven Academy opening in August 2009.
In
conclusion, I’ve learnt so much in this last year:
- Supporting the Labour
administration was certainly something I didn’t support back in May
2007. It was a difficult concept to get my head around, especially when
we had the chance to change the council completely. In reflection, this
decision from the seasoned Tory councils and their concern over SNP
immaturity was well founded and majority of Labour councillors have
become respective to the new Tory balance of power and together we are
improving South Lanarkshire for everyone.
- During the Strathaven Academy
special council process in June / July 2007, would I do again what I did
back then by putting forward a paper that allowed the school demolition
to go-a-head, followed by the tw0-year decant? My answer is simply YES!
What was the alternative? Labour were against any re-thinking at all and
the SNP were so disorganised. Without the Tory’s we would have achieved
even less so the three months of abuse I received from people like Stan Hogarth was worth it because the
Troy’s have played a massive part in the all round improvement of South
Lanarkshire, ensuring that bad decisions like the Strathaven Academy
will never happen again.
- Finally, what has kept me
going over the past twelve months is the way a councillor can make a
difference to people’s lives. As you will see from the SUCCESS section
(left menu), we have had successes so I need to develop what I have
learnt in my first year as a councillor and deliver even more success in
year-two.
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