Rail, roads, and ferries meeting with minister

Just finished a meeting between transport minister Humza Yousaf MSP and the board of North East transport partnership Nestrans.

A wide range of issues were discussed in an hour-long session. Some key points:

– Rail projects take a long time. Improvements in journey times Aberdeen to/from Glasgow and Edinburgh. Considerable investment in the North East rail network. Looking at doubling track south of Montrose (Usan is “top of the list”, but complex engineering problems).

Laurencekirk flyover going through the process, and he noted the scepticism locally. Looking forward to it opening. Planning for A96 dualling in hand, with a route east of Inverurie in consideration. The minister listened as the case was made for improving the A90 north to Toll of Birness. There was no promise from the minister about a date for opening the Aberdeen bypass.

City centre low emission areas are being set up in the four main cities to improve air quality. Buses are part of the solution rather than the problem. Long lead-in times.

Road equivalent tariffs are due to be introduced on the Aberdeen/Shetland ferry. With a reduction of some 40% in fares it is expected there will be a huge increase in traffic. This may lead to larger ferries (which the Scottish Goverment hopes to buy rather thanlease, saving £6m which will fund the scheme). The larger ferries might use the new south harbour at Nigg.

Too much food is going to landfill

Did you know that some 60% of the stuff in the landfill bin could be recycled? Overall this is costing the council roughly £3.5 million a year – nearly the equivalent of the forthcoming council tax increase.

Landfill is twice as expensive as recycling. And after 2021 landfill is no longer an option.

Food waste presents an easy win. Currently a mere 32% of food waste is put out for recycling. The rest goes to landfill. Money wasted.

Council officers are working on how recycling can be encouraged. As part of that work there is a survey on the council website. So far more than 2800 have completed the survey. It closes on Wednesday 28 February.

To take part in the on-line survey see: http://bit.ly/AbshireRecyclingSurvey 

Please help.

Aberdeenshire’s landfill site at Stoneyhill near Peterhead

Out and about with the chief executive

A very worthwhile day today going round the North Kincardine ward with Aberdeenshire Council’s chief executive Jim Savege. He offered to spend time with the four ward councillors to hear about the issues in the area.

My colleague Colin Pike did the driving, taking the three of us round the ward starting with the Men’s Shed in Portlethen. After four years of hard work it is due to open next month. Remarkable effort.

We drove over many of the country roads and discussed how badly they have been affected by AWPR construction traffic. The aim is to get them repaired once the bypass is open. In the meantime the challenge is keeping the roads safe. No easy task given the combination of AWPR traffic and winter weather. Please help by reporting potholes.

We called at the Devenick Dairy’s Tin Coo (pictured). What a great success that has been, now employing 20 people.

Other topics discussed included flooding, future housing policies, urban sprawl, the economic downturn, farming, sports provision, the Blairs and Chapelton developments, and schooling. We visited Lairhillock, Banchory Devenick, and Hillside primary schools.

After going to Old Portlethen the tour concluded back in Portlethen.

It was a great opportunity to show the chief executive the challenges and opportunities facing the residents of North Kincardine.

At the Devenick Dairy

Funding fair in the diary

Kincardineshire Development Partnership (KDP), working with AVA and Aberdeenshire Council, delivered a series of funding workshops late last year. These were aimed at community groups and not-for-profit organisations in Kincardine and Mearns.
KDP has now organised a Funding Fair, to provide a finale to the workshops.
This will take place on Saturday 24 February in Stonehaven Community Centre from 10:30 to 1:30pm. There will be  a number of stalls from various funders, and everyone is welcome to drop in at any convenient point. They are also offering workshops on community shares and crowdfunding – booking is required for these. In the afternoon, there will be time for one-to-one surgeries if anyone would like to speak with an individual funder or adviser in more depth.
For further information and booking forms contact Lesley Carnegie at KDP (01569 763246 or lesleykdp@gmail.com).

More Hillside roads adopted

I have just heard that Redmire Avenue, Redmire Crescent and Balquharn Drive in Hillside have now been adopted by Aberdeenshire Council.
The roads have been satisfactorily completed in accordance with a construction consent, granted in accordance with the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984. As such, as the roads authority, Aberdeenshire Council is required under the Act to add the roads to its Statutory List of Public Roads.
This means that any comments about potholes, street lights and suchlike should be reported to the council, and not the developer: https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/apps/roadfaults/

Budget cuts services and raises council tax

Not really any good news from today’s meeting of Aberdeenshire Council when we set the budget for this year. We are facing some £20m of cuts just to stand still.

Aberdeenshire is the third lowest funded council in Scotland, and has been for many years. If we had our fair share of government grant – that’s just the average that all councils receive – we would have £52m more to spend.

Councillors agreed to a revenue budget for the 2018/19 year of £543m. This is the amount held to cover day-to-day funding of services such as staffing and service delivery.

There was agreement across the chamber from councillors of all parties that council tax will go up by 3%. To do otherwise would have left a £4m hole in the finances resulting in even more cuts. The council tax increases work out at 45p a week for the lowest band, and £1.65 a week for the highest band. I have attached a photo showing what this means to householders.There are a number of cuts to services, but these are not as bad as they could have been, thanks to a last-minute agreement at the Scottish Parliament between the SNP and the Green party for more funding for local government. This resulted in Aberdeenshire receiving an extra £7.7m. Very welcome, but still not enough to avert some cut-backs.

There was the usual political ding-dong, with the Democratic/Green pairing proposing an alternative budget, as did the SNP/Labour group. The eventual vote was won by the Tory/Lib Dem/independent administration by 41 votes to 21.

We also approved a capital plan for 2018 to 2033 which totals £849m, including a £71m Peterhead community campus, £23m for an Inverurie community campus, and £6m for a community sports facility at the Hill of Banchory. The plan was approved with one councillor registering dissent. (I have heard questions locally since these decisions were made asking why Portlethen should pay for schools elsewhere. The simple answer is that our relatively new academy and the Hillside School opened last year were financed by the council too.)

Extra funding of £5.17m was allocated to the council’s reserves to pay for pay increases – which are still being negotiated nationally – and any overspends in 2018-19.

The council’s own carbon budget was also agreed, and we have to reduce our emissions by 4,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, which is about the same as taking 784 cars off the road for a full year.

Finally, it was agreed unanimously to increase council house rents by 3.75%. The average weekly increase will be £2.67, taking the average weekly rent to £73.90.

No-one stands for election aiming to cut services and put up taxes and charges. Unfortunately there is no alternative. Our local finances have been cut in real terms every year for a decade, affecting the funding needed for our schools, roads and care services. At the same time we face significant budget pressures from inflation and ever-increasing demand for the services. Not a good day.

Speed cameras catching drivers

I’m catching up with the news – here are the figures for drivers caught on the A90 by the average speed cameras, including the stretch at Charleston.

I see very few drivers bombing along now. However the Evening Express reports than more than 500 drivers being caught on the A90 in two months.

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/more-than-500-offences-caught-on-average-speed-cameras-on-a90-in-just-two-months1/

Farm houses win approval

I see in the latest list of approved planning applications is the conversion of a steading to form three dwellinghouses at Newtonhill Farm, Newtonhill.

This includes alterations to the access. The farm sits to the west of the A90.

You can find out more on the council website, under planning – the reference is APP/2016/1823: https://upa.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=O987BQCAGED00