Council Budget Shocks

After two years of being run by the SNP and Labour, the Council is in a very difficult financial position.

The SNP Government at Holyrood imposed a council fax freeze on all councils, so the SNP and Labour Councillors decided to raise money in other ways. Among their cash raising schemes are:

• A £50 annual charge per green bin to empty garden waste.
• Introduce on street parking charges in Union Street, Townhead and Oxford Street.
• Increasing the charges in car parks where there is already charging.
• Increases in other charges such as pest control and various licences.

The council will hold a consultation exercise on extending the parking charges to places where it is free at the moment. People will have the right to object in writing to the new parking charges.

Objectors had the right to speak at the council committee which would decide whether or not the charges will be extended, but the SNP and Labour have taken this right away. The Liberal Democrats voted to keep this right.

Grey Bin Collection to move to 3-weekly

Another cut the SNP and Labour decided to make is to change the collection of the get bins (residual waste) from every two weeks to every three weeks.

The have scheduled this change to begin in February. The Liberal Democrats voted against this change as well.