Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting the new Kincardine and Mearns councillors at one of their training days in the chamber in Stonehaven.

My role was to tell them what it is really like to be a councillor. I was able to speak freely as I am no longer bound by the councillors’ code of conduct. There is more to the job than is apparent, though shockingly the legal minimum requirement is to attend only one council meeting every six months.

I took the opportunity to hand back all my IT equipment (laptop, printer, mobile phone etc) as well. Now the task is to shred or otherwise dispose of all the council-related papers I have acquired over 15 years. No rush though, as my time is now my own!

I see that the Liberal Democrat group on the council has chosen Councillor Anne Stirling to be the group leader. A sound choice as Anne has been not only the Lib Dem group leader before but also the council leader. More here: https://www.grampianonline.co.uk/news/turriff-councillor-elected-as-aberdeenshire-liberal-democrat-274672/?fbclid=IwAR0gUMLheXRgEZmrgNXmmdV1dieAeHXmKlYhRWRpjon7I-fAE66ENQSiwZg

Our four new North Kincardine ward councillors are:
David Aitchison (SNP), formerly councillor for Westhill.
Shirley Burnett (Conservative) from Stonehaven.
Mel Sullivan (Liberal Democrat) who lives in Portlethen.
Catherine Victor (SNP) who lives in Stonehaven.

You can read the results in full on the Aberdeenshire Council website: \https://aberdeenshire.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/elections/council-elections-2022/?ward=17&fbclid=IwAR0MsNrvVeXsxJCV4mAA4KtfQNb5u4yofYYM1BpM9tymlJfNgYk58khC_cE

Final two days of being a councillor. But the work doesn’t stop.

This morning I was asked to sign a statutory declaration. I have had a few of these over the years. Usually it is for a change of name. I have also been called on to sign passport applications, shotgun licence applications, and confirm copies of documents are authentic.

The Statutory Declarations Act 1835 abolished the use of oaths and substituted statutory declarations for many subjects, and these have been added to over the years. A statutory declaration is a written declaration of facts. It is an offence punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine to make a false statement in a statutory declaration.

The applicant is responsible for the contents of the declaration. The councillor who signs the form is only confirming that the form was signed by the applicant.

It may sound not particularly important or onerous, but this is changing someone’s future.

I’ve also been to a coffee morning, knocked on some doors with Mel Sullivan, dealt with remaining casework, and answered a phone call about fly-tipping in the ward. Now to continue clearing out the files before I hand back the laptop and the mobile phone.

Police Scotland today issued a warning regarding another Royal Mail fake text scam where an Aberdeenshire resident has lost nearly £10,000.

North East Division crime reduction officer PC Mark Irvine warned: “We are reminding everyone to look out for such scams as anyone with a mobile phone could be a target.”

On receiving a text message which they believed was from the Post Office, advising they had a missed a parcel, they clicked on the link to what looked like the genuine post office website.

They input their name, date of birth and address in order to choose a new delivery date. They also had to input card details as it requested she paid a £2.50 delivery fee, which they did, as they were awaiting a delivery. Shortly afterwards, they received a phone call from an English male voice spoke who identified himself as being from her bank, advising there was fraudulent activity on their account. A further text was received, advising of an attempt to remove money.

The male advised account had been hacked and he would set up a new account to transfer funds in to.

Someone from the bank IT advised they download a mobile phone application called Any Desk which they did, resulting in them transferring the cash. If you receive a suspicious message via email, website or text message, you can take the following actions:

• Email – if you feel unsure about an email you have received, you can forward it to the Suspicious Email Reporting Services at report@phishing.gov.uk

• Website – If you have come across a website which you think is fake, you can report it here – https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/section/about-this-website/report-scam-website

• Text message – Report suspicious text messages for free to 7726. Your provider can investigate the text and take action if found to be fraudulent.

Unfinished business. The latest update for the Hillside electric vehicle charging units is that the council’s contractor is in discussions with SSE regarding a date for the works.

SSE has a timescale of 4-6 weeks for the cabling to be completed and then final commissioning will take place. A connection date is still awaited, but I suspect that bit of information won’t be available until after the council elections.

What a time this has taken for SSE to complete this.

Badentoy Drive in Portlethen has now been adopted by Aberdeenshire Council.

The road has been satisfactorily completed in accordance with a construction consent, granted in accordance with the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984.

As such, as the local roads authority, Aberdeenshire Council is required under the Act to add the above roads to its Statutory List of Public Roads.

Here is the latest bulletin from Aberdeenshire Council’s Trading Standards department.

DOORSTEP CRIME

In late 2021, a resident in the Buchan area had a cold caller attend at his door offering a free health check on his solar panels, which the resident accepted.

Several days later another representative of the company’s arrived and completed the health check.

However, whilst she was there the rep managed to persuade the resident to agree a service of his solar panels and have fitted an inverter device at a cost of £1500, which he paid with a debit card. The line the rep used was ‘You get your car and your boiler serviced so why not your solar panels’. She also played on the resident’s fears of the solar panel company going out of business.

Some time later the resident received an electricity bill which was far greater than he’d expected so he had the solar panels checked once again and found that their efficiency had dropped from around 90% to under 5%. It was also established that the inverter was the cause.

Trading Standards is dealing with the matter but this is an example of unscrupulous traders taking advantage of peoples’ interest in renewable and green energy technology.

There are a number of approved schemes in the UK which set standards for installers of renewable technology. One such body is the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS, https://mcscertified.com/ ) which requires member to be part of a Certification Body which assess the technical competency of the installer and an approved code of practice, which ensures that the traders’ business practices exceed those laid down in law.

Another such organisation worth bearing in mind is TrustMark (https://www.trustmark.org.uk/aboutus), a not-for-profit social enterprise which operates under agreement from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Notable consumer codes for the renewables industry are HIES (https://www.hiesscheme.org.uk/) and the Renewable Energy Consumer Code (RECC, https://www.recc.org.uk/).

We would recommend that when considering installing, servicing or replacing renewables technology at home that, to avoid problems like the one above, that consumers start with one or more of the schemes mentioned in this article.

Bear in mind too that when a trader cold calls you at home, that you have a 14 day cooling off period in which to change your mind and when paying for goods and services over £100, you may have greater legal protection under Section 75 cover (Consumer Credit Act 1974) using a credit card rather than a debit card.

PUPPY SCAMS

One resident of north Aberdeenshire recently reported that he had bought a dog via an online classified ads website. The ad and the seller advised the resident that the dog was a greyhound which was about three months old. The resident was also told that the dog was house-trained, toilet trained, fully vaccinated and good with children, so he went ahead with the purchase, paying several hundred pounds in cash for the dog.

As time went on it became clear that the dog was none of the things that had been promised. The dog was a destructive, anxious, highly strung animal which became aggressive when scared, so much so that it had to be taken to a rehoming charity who advised the resident that the dog was actually about a year old. During this period, the seller blocked all contact from the resident when a refund as mentioned.

If you are considering getting a dog, please consider the following points amongst many others:

• Please do not buy dogs from classified ads (online or offline) or from social media. These are often the mediums used by illegal puppy farmers or disreputable breeders who will then find it easy to avoid contact if something goes wrong.

• There are many reputable breeders and pet shops in Aberdeenshire and further afield who take the welfare of their dogs seriously. Buying from these types of outlets also provide a bricks and mortar address to refer to in the event of a dispute. It also permits seeing the dogs’ mother to check on her welfare and the conditions the puppies were kept in. Pet shops and most breeders (those breeding more than three litters per year) must be registered to operate as such with their local authority.

• There are also numerous charities in Aberdeenshire who are looking to re-home dogs who have been family pets but are in the charity’s care through no fault of their own. These charities will also undertake an assessment of these dogs to give the best match to prospective families and will attend to any medical needs whilst the dogs are in their care.

• Whether pet shops, breeders or charities ask to see the dog’s medical history, so that you can have confidence that the dog doesn’t suffer from any serious or costly medical conditions of if they do, that you know about these up-front. These documents will include details of vaccinations and medication and the vet’s practice which cared for the dog previously.

• Watch for red flags when dealing with the seller such as not having an address for them, meeting them at a neutral location for handovers, only having a mobile number and the original ad as means of contact; paying in cash rather than by bank transfer and in this particular case when the dog did not have a lead but an old piece of rope as a lead.

Further information can be found at https://www.saynotopuppydealers.co.uk/ and https://www.scottishspca.org/advice/domestic/dogs. Details of registered breeder can be found with the Kennel Club at https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/

INVESTMENTS

Trading Standards were recently contacted by a resident in south Aberdeenshire who was concerned about her investments in a company called National Provident Investments (NPI), which had gone into liquidation. It turns out that NPI does not actually hold the investments but simply invest the funds through other companies.

However, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a warning that scammers may try to contact customers of NPI, claiming to be from legitimate companies appointed by the FCA or the appointed liquidator. If you are contacted by someone claiming to be in either of these categories, please do NOT engage with them, simply hang up.

Further information and what to do if you have been contacted can be found at https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/consumer-warning-northern-providentinvestments particularly under the ‘Protecting yourself’ section.

CONTACTS

For urgent Trading Standards matters, contact Aberdeenshire Council’s Trading Standards at 01467 537222. For non-urgent enquiries, please contact Consumer Advice Scotland at https://www.consumeradvice.scot/ or on 0808 164 6000.

Contact Police Scotland on 999 if you need urgent police assistance or 101 for non-urgent matters.
For more information about scams please visit Friends Against Scams at https://www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk/ or Take Five at https://takefivestopfraud.org.uk/

Today there were 118 patients (119 last week) in NHS Grampian hospitals who have tested positive for covid-19. Four people were in intensive care (two last week). 

NHS Grampian says: “The newest stats reveal one in 25 people in Scotland are estimated to have had covid-19 on the w/e 23 April, compared to one in 19 previously. This is equivalent to just over 4% of the population, so the risk of catching the virus is still very high. Admissions to hospital have been falling, although seem to have plateaued in recent days. There has been a slight rise in admissions for people aged 70 and over which is impacting on length of stay. Covid-19 hospital occupancy remains high and not far short of our busiest period during the Delta wave in January 2021.”

In Aberdeenshire:

• Two deaths were recorded in the past week linked to covid-19. The cumulative toll is 316.
  
• DROPPING – 896 cases were recorded in the past seven days. Previous weekly figures were: 1289, 1638, 2066, 2989, 3469, 4148, 3789, 2797, 2357, 2305, 2555, 2763, 1203, 1275, 2301, 4098, 2378, 1373, 1009, 702, 750, 894, 968, 863, 1005, 1165, 852, 1002, 965, 894, 1197, 1442, 1639, 1159, 657, 331, 319, 261, 256, 345, 520, 621, 514, 287, 72, 64, 28, 26, 42, 34, 24, and 17. 
  
• 316 vaccinations were administered in the Shire last week.
  
• More statistics here. 
  
• DOWN – The seven day positive rate per 100,000 is 367,  according to Public Health Scotland. Previous weeks were 628.1, 728.6, 1146.2, 1330.2, 1590.6, 1452.9, 1072.6, 906.1, 882.7, 978.6, 473.6, 459.0, 486.6, 876.6, 1544.6, 893.5, 506.6, 378.1, 269.2, 282.6, 342.8, 371.2, 330.9, 383.1, 423.7, 326.7, 384.2, 367.4, 340.5, 424.5, 553.0, 628.5, 444.4, 251.9, 126.9, 122.3, 100.1, 98.2, 130.8, 199.4, 237.7, 196.8, 109.9, 27.6, 24.5, 10.7, 10.0, 16,1, 13.0, 9.2, and 6.5.
  
• FALLING – In the past seven days 17 cases were recorded in the Netherley / Fetteresso / Catterline area, 21 in the Banchory-Devenick / Findon area, 15 in Portlethen, and 16 in Newtonhill.
  
  For details click here then go to “View by Cases by Neighbourhood”, and under “Select Local Authority” choose Aberdeenshire.
  
• All vaccination clinics in Grampian will be CLOSED on Monday 2 May for the May Day holiday. As a result there are no scheduled appointments and drop-ins will not be available. All clinics will re-open as normal on Tuesday 3 May.

Thursday sees Scotland go to the polls to select candidates to serve on local councils for the next five years.

There are nine candidates in the North Kincardine ward vying for four places. The last time we voted for councillors was in 2017. First preference votes went (in order) to the Conservative, Liberal Democrat (me!), SNP and Labour candidates. This time there is no Labour candidate, but we also have people standing for the Greens, the Family party, and two independents.

I am voting for Mel Sullivan, a local resident with a record of working in the community and for the community. I have every confidence in her. But you would expect me to say that! 

Whatever your views, please vote. Remember, it is not an X this time, but 1, 2, 3, 4 (and so on, if you wish).

If you have already voted by post, then thank you.

I was pleased to see workmen busy this morning filling potholes on Cairnhill Road in Newtonhill. I raised this with the Roads Service (again) on Tuesday at area committee, and lo and behold it is done.

Still more to be done of course, and further pothole filling, resurfacing, and surface dressing planned this summer.