Scottish council elections: Holyrood favours east coast, insists west

THE SNP government is facing claims of an east coast bias which could damage its hopes in the west of Scotland as voters prepare to go to the polls in next week’s local elections.

Some councillors in Argyll and Bute say their only hope of securing vital road upgrades is to pretend they are “sliproads of the new Forth bridge”.

The region has the worst roads in Scotland according to national indicators, but Nationalist councillors have insisted that the problem is down to years of under-investment.

The SNP government at Holyrood is hoping to turn Machrihanish and Campbeltown in Kintyre into key renewables hubs, but it is feared this could be undermined by the state of lifeline routes in the region. “The west coast is a bit of a forgotten area,” said Neil Mackay, who sits as an Independent on the administration.

“Scottish Government investment in our main trunk roads – the A83, A82 and A85 – is crucial. They’re our main arteries, they’re lifelines to the whole of Argyll and its islands and they’re lifelines for tourism.

“I’ve said tongue in cheek that unless we can get our three artery roads included as slip roads to the new Forth bridge, we’re going to have difficulty. Unless we’ve got these routes then we can shut up shop.”

The council is run by a coalition of Independents, the Tories and Liberal Democrats, which took over in December 2010 when the SNP quit office over proposed rural school closures.

The A83 Rest and be Thankful road, from Tarbet to Campbelltown, has been the subject of repeated closures in recent years as a result of landslides and the government has pledged £1 million to tackle this.

It is among the issues which have led to the to the establishment of the Argyll First grouping on the council, to fight for local issues. The group has presented a petition to Holyrood calling for the roads situation to be resolved.

Donald Kelly a member of the group, who will stand as a Conservative because Argyll First is not officially registered as a party, said the area gets a raw deal compared with the east.

“The amount of money that is spent in the east coast of Scotland compared with the west coast is out of kilter and we’ve not got the recognition in the west coast that we should be getting,” he said.

“The roads are an absolute disgrace and not fit for purpose.”

But SNP councillor for South Kintyre, John Semple, said: “We’re looking at decades of under-investment in roads and in order to change that, it has taken a lot of jiggling about to see how the council allocates capital spending.

“When we came into administration there was something like £3.5m being put into the roads, but this year it’s something like £7.5m.”

Rural schools are likely to be a key issue after the last SNP/Independent administration collapsed over controversial plans which would have led to the closure of 26 schools. Any further school closures have been halted while a Scottish Government review is carried out.