COUNCIL PLANNING DECISIONS WE MUST TOLERATE NO MORE

NOTEBOOK BY BILL HEANEY

There are many things that residents of Dumbarton should not be prepared to tolerate. And autistic children is not one of them.

There is a long list of what is imposed on us by West Dunbartonshire Council that is unacceptable.

Some of the planning commIttee decisions are beyond ridiculous.

And what the Labour administration has shown recently is that it is prepared to do anything for the council tax money that new housing developments will bring in to their Church Street coffers.

We mentioned here recently the traffic chaos the West End can put the kettle on for when the new housing developments at Clerkhill and the Monument site on either side of Cardross Road are completed.

The traffic will have to merge with the existing buses, cars and lorries on the main Dumbarton-Helensburgh road as they come out of Castlehill Road, Brucehill Road, St MIchael’s PS and church, Oxhill Road and Comleybank Lane travelling towards the traffic lights at Dalreoch.

The traffic coming from Helensburgh will by that time have already had to merge with traffic spilling out of Castlehill, Westcliff, the Joint Hospital and Havoc Road.

The council’s attitude to the fact that there will be mayhem in the morning when the schools go in seems to be one of “Who cares? Think of the council tax money. Just get on with it.”

Why are the council pressing on with these developments?

We would love to keep you informed, but the council won’t talk to us. They seem not to want the voting public to know the detail of what it is they are up to now or planning next. Lots of questions badly need asking.

They won’t speak to us either about the recently completed housing on the site of the old County Buildings off Garshake Road at at Overtoun.

There may have been mayhem there while the council offices were still operating with folk fighting over coveted car parking spaces and the like, but in many ways it hasn’t gone away you know.

They have left a legacy of sad and upset neighbors in McGregor Avenue and the streets further up the Garshake brae, where the council without consultation cruelly cut back a beautiful hawthorn hedge.

Linda Speirs, left, and her husband, Tom, are the kind of people you would like to have in your community.

Tom was a police officer and Linda was the chairperson of a community council.

They were living happily in McGregor Avenue until the council came on the scene like a malignant ghost to ruin their retirement.

Linda told me: “We moved into our current home 42 years ago today. We’ve spent many hours sitting and working in our garden, enjoying views across to the other side of the Clyde.

“Now all has been ruined by Miller Homes and WDC Planning Committee.

“You have to wonder if these people ever stop to think of what they’re destroying for residents, not to mention all the trees and wildlife impacted by such awful decisions.”

It is not what they believed would happen at Garshake. They had already flagged up their fears to the council before the planning committee met to decide on the Miller Homes application.

But the cloth-eared council didn’t listen.

The negative impact of the new houses is there for all to see in the photographs accompanying this Notebook.

Something similar is about to happen at Willox Park in Barloan. A new house building programme is set to take place there.

Willox Park is where the council closed the care home and shunted the residents, along with those from other care homes at Dalreoch and Langcraigs up into the back of beyond at Crosslet, where, it was revealed this week, they don’t have enough beds to meet the demand. How’s that for vision?

Our elderly will now be shunted up to Clydebank where visiting them will be both difficult and expensive and time consuming.

They now have the custom-built houses for old folk at Willox Park in their sights.

These were built at the behest of Nanny Willox, Dunbartonshire’s Lady Bountiful, and Provosts Ian Campbell and Iain MacDuff, real Labour councillors, who were of the community and cared for the comunity – and listened to what local people had to say.

Isn’t it time the council turned the sound up? It’s time they started talking to the community. They claim to consult, but they don’t really. As for voter empowerment, that’s out the window too.

It’s Springtime. It’s time for change. It’s time the council taxpayers got value for the £500,000 or whatever it is we spend on communications.

If that figure is wrong then that’s the council’s fault, not ours.

The silence from Church Street is deafening. We may not be able to tolerate it for much longer.