Botched up roadworks in Balloch impact on patients in the Vale
Patients can’t get to appointments because buses have been withdrawn.
By Bill Heaney
Never apologise. Never explain. This appears to be the strategy of West Dunbartonshire Council leader Jonathan McColl.
The SNP man must be dizzy doing U-turns, the latest of which concerns the roadworks bourach in Balloch, which has wrecked the Loch Lomondside village as a tourist spot in the run-up to Easter.
And maybe even until July, which is bang in the middle of the summer season when all roads lead to Balloch.
Or at least they used to lead to Balloch until Jonathan got together with the Loch Lomond Park Authority and Scottish Enterprise and agreed to spruce up the Moss O’ Balloch Square in anticipation of Iconic Leisure receiving planning permission for Flamingo Land.
Local people signed petitions and turned out in their droves to oppose Flamingo Land – and strangely Jonathan did too (eventually) – but the response from the big guns who support the application was to ignore the public and plough on with preparations for this detested development.
The Council’s SNP administration must be supporting Flamingo Land, ever so quietly keeping their cards close to their chest, trying hard but not successfully to be all things to all men and women.
Why else, when cuts are being imposed across the board by the Council are they making improvements to a square that there’s no urgency to improve?
Why in God’s name are they ordering granite paving slabs from CHINA when the first batch proved to be unsuitable and dangerously slippery underfoot?
The Council could have got something equally suitable if not better from Jamestown Concrete, even if they have now moved to Lanarkshire?
Or from Mr Rogers, the builder’s merchant, on the Lomond Industrial Estate, down Heather Avenue?
The real problem with Cllr McColl however is not his cack-handedness in almost everything he touches but his lack of vision.
You wouldn’t believe that he is the councillor for the Lomond Ward, where this botched road works project is supposed to be ongoing but is not going on.
Given that he would like to be re-elected along with his Conservative friend, Cllr Sally Page, the super-rich Lochside lady who continues to support PM Theresa May and Universal Credit, he really should buck up.
A councillor’s duty is to ensure that he knows about everything that is going on in his own Ward and precisely how it will impact on the electorate there.
Once again we have Cllr McColl giving all the appearances of hating the Conservatives and lacerating them for starving Scotland of the money that forces the SNP government to impose their hated austerity measures, management adjustments, swingeing cuts.
Call them what you will and Cllr McColl and his colleagues certainly do that, they slide into bed comfortably with the Scottish Conservatives.
Is it any wonder they are still referred to by some as Tartan Tories?
So far as vision is concerned, Cllr McColl should have known the impact of the roadworks at Balloch and elsewhere in Alexandria would have a wider impact than on just the village itself. On the Vale of Leven Hospital, for example.
After all, isn’t Cllr McColl a member of the Health Board that is supposed to manage the hospital?
Chris Guy has written this to the West Dunbartonshire Against Austerity social media group:
“As if roadworks in the Balloch/Alexandria area aren’t bad enough, this week from Monday to Saturday there will be no First Buses number 1 service.
“[It] will be out of service to the Vale Hospital due to the road works. No buses running to and from the hospital.
“So, that’s a full week of staff and patients who don’t drive having to walk up from Vale Swimming Pool.
“This really is poor and unacceptable. God help anyone with mobility issues.”
This is also a very clear example of how local agencies fail to liaise with each other to the detriment of the public service they are paid to provide.
If it were me – and thankfully it’s not – I would be telephoning the hospital to inform all patients with appointments that transport would be provided for them to and from their appointments at the Vale.
If that costs money from the public purse, then that pales into insignificance when one considers how much has been squandered since the SNP took office.
You want examples of this? Where would you like me to start?