Wednesday, November 29, 2017

"local democracy in Scotland is on life support" say Scottish Community Alliance

Yes a lot of people in Nairnshire think that and, in addition, that our community has been shafted over the years with facilities disappearing to Inverness. Many believe that what the high heid yins through there think is good for us becomes the mantra for officials and elected councillors alike. 

Regular readers may well remember the recent stushie between the Community Councils and the Nairn and Nairnshire partnership. For a long while relations between Highland Council and the CCs too have not been very good either and some of the usual suspects are seeing the recent attacks on CCs by Tom Heggie and Liz MacDonald in this light - perhaps that could be true to a certain extent but here at the Gurn we suspect that there could well be additional parochial matters that have been driving these recent outbursts. 

So it is with all this in mind that we publish a wee extract from the Scottish Community Alliance's latest newsletter:

"Despite being woefully under-resourced and under-powered, routinely ignored by local councils and often maligned by public caricature, the fact that 1,200 community councils continue to meet on a regular basis across Scotland is a remarkable tale of civic durability. It’s 45 years since they were first established – a sop to those who railed against the erosion of local democracy when burgh and town councils were disbanded in the 1970’s – and so what’s about to happen has not only been a long time coming, but it’s likely to be an uncomfortable ride for anyone who thinks the current democratic stasis is acceptable."

Will we ever see a democratically elected public body sitting  in the Courthouse again, deciding all of Nairn's affairs or are we shafted beyond return? Some still hold out hope for such advances in Scotland. Anyone interested in these matters might want to read a bit more here on the SCA site.