If the SNP win the elections to Highland Council on May 3rd and form the administration they are promising to restore the area committees across the Highlands their web site states:
"The Manifesto pledge would mean that, as soon as possible, all Councillors elected in May, will serve on Area Committees throughout the Highlands, including Caithness, Lochaber, Nairn and Badenoch & Strathspey, Wester Ross, Sutherland and Skye as well as Ross and Cromarty and will be more available to their electors. Once these committees are established an SNP Administration will work to make sure that as many decisions as possible are taken at local level, including local planning and licensing but also, crucially, revenue spend on roads and community services."
This observer comes away disappointed with that, Nairnshire will be lumped in with Badenoch and Strathspey. No doubt Badenoch and Strathspey would like to be left on their own too. But it has to be seen as a step forward in terms of planning decisions etc. Could this be an ideal opportunity to go much further should this vision come true in the spring? A restored area committee could easily have the chairs of all of Nairnshire's Community Councils sitting with them to help prioritise what needed doing in the County of Nairnshire. Should this come to pass then this observer is sure that our massed ranks of Community Council usual suspects would prove an extra advantage in making sure that Grantown and Aviemore etc didn't get the upper hand on us and all was fair in the division of the dwindling amounts of cash available for the budgets.
The SNP also take a swipe at the current administration and to this observer that administration deserves it. One wonders especially, how the Liberal Democrats, who are supposed to be all about decentralisation, have allowed so much power to drip away to Inverness? They have to shoulder the greater part of the blame as they effectively pull the strings in Glenurquhart Road. Anyway here's what the SNP say:
"The SNP Group believe our commitment to more effective, local democracy will make a huge difference to the energy and enthusiasm of the whole of the Highlands. All areas, including the City of Inverness to make better, more relevant decisions on its growth and development.”
He added. “The current Independent/Lib Dem/Labour Administration has slept through the calls for decision-making to be brought home to communities and has allowed it to be taken away from public scrutiny. There is rarely any good reason for the workings of the Council to be kept from the public, support for change is strong and an SNP Administration will bring democracy and decision-making much closer to your home.” "
This policy has gone done well with the Inverness Courier: "Nationalists promise to bring power back to the city'," says a headline on the frontpage this morning. Inside the paper's editorial makes favourable noises too, beginning:
"How Inverness is run has been a subject of debate ever since the city lost its district council and was subsumed within Highland region. That provoked complaints from both sides, with Invernessians unhappy at politicians from Caithness and Lochaber exerting undue influence on developments in the Highland Capital, while people in the wider Highlands perceive the city to be swallowing up more than its share of the budget."
So we are promised an area committee comprising Nairn, Badenoch and Stratheyspey – a step forward and more than anyone else is offering but to be fair we await the individual manifestos of the rest of the candidates for our area.
More on the SNP website
