Cinema support
Sir,
I think the proposed cinema is a fabulous idea. For a huge number of reasons:
1 Keeps our community from being excluded from the real world.
2 Gives our kids a chance to feel that they are not ‘cut off’.
3 Gives tourists something to do on our frequent dreich days.
Personally I’ve never managed to get to the screen machine due to shift and work commitments.
My advice to these people to make this work successfully would be to work the screenings with the timing of the buses and alleviate unnecessary parking. After all the bus depot is next door. Just takes a genius IQ to work the timetables out.
I still do have concerns over parking but this is a very small island and whatever you do will always have an ‘anti’ due to parking etc, but we cannot get away that virtually every time you switch the TV on, Arran is on the box somewhere. Add to the mix that the people who have been here in the past invariably come back.
For all the natives and oldies who remember and who know them – and I have to say, I am one of them – you cannot stop progress, you can only bend it to suit the circumstances better.
Yours,
Sandra Brown,
Lamlash.
Budget cuts
Sir
At the full council meeting of North Ayrshire Council in November, we received a report from our finance officer showing that our budget was £92m less than it needed to be versus the situation in 2010/11. Add to that the effects of the SNP’s Council Tax freeze from 2007, and the sum is nearer £100m. That’s £100m short of what we need to deliver vital services.
On Wednesday, Derek MacKay presented his budget to Holyrood. Mr MacKay suggested there was an increase in council budgets, but there isn’t – there is a cut. That’s another cut in a succession of cuts from the SNP. According to COSLA, the cut is £273m for 2019/20. So the NAC budget will be cut again, we just wait to see by how much.
We all suffer from these cuts. Cuts make it more difficult to address potholes in our roads, books and teacher shortages in our schools, care shortages for our ill, elderly or infirm. They make it difficult to find the money to invest in local causes: community centres, town centres, town halls, libraries, roads and pavements. The other victims are council workers whose jobs have been cut and whose wages have fallen behind since the SNP came to power in 2007. Nobody voted for these cuts. Derek MacKay even denies they exist, but they do, and they are destroying our local infrastructure and our vital services. That’s your vital services.
One problem we have, which I find very frustrating, is that SNP Councillors in North Ayrshire refuse to fight the cuts from the SNP at Holyrood. Can I suggest that anyone who depends on council services, or has relatives or neighbours who depend on these services, write to your local SNP group of vouncillors at Cunninghame House demanding they oppose any further cuts to our budget and to your services?
It will register your concerns and, who knows, it might even give our SNP councillors a bit of backbone to fight for North Ayrshire rather than just cave in to their own party interests.
Yours,
Alex Gallagher,
Labour Councillor North Coast and Cumbraes.
Corrie quiz
Sir,
May I, through your columns, thank those who supported our quiz.
In true ‘Strictly’ tradition, having been ‘independently scrutinised’, of the seven all-correct entries, the drawn winner was Clare Jefferis from Almondsbury.
Correct answers may be found on Sannox and Corrie noticeboard and in the ‘Catstone’.
Yours,
Elma Stevenson,
Corrie.
Forestry fight
Sir
I also, was very shocked and saddened, as are all my family, about the proposal to build a road and slipway along the haven that is Imachar shore (Merial Appleton – Arran Banner December 8).
Walking along there with children is wonderful. Off the road, safe from traffic, cliffs on one side and the sea on the other,it is one of the best coastal walks on Arran. To think in the future big forestry lorries will be driving along there is beyond belief. No we will not let it be destroyed, not without a fight anyway.
Yours,
Margaret Craig,
Imachar.
Christmas giving
Sir,
People make Christmas, not gifts. However, whilst many of us will be enjoying the abundance of food and gifts at home with loved ones this year, others aren’t so fortunate.
Tragically, heart and circulatory diseases kill 15,500 people in Scotland each year and 700,000 people are currently living with the daily burden of these conditions.
This Christmas, I’m asking you to think about the millions of families who have been torn apart by heart and circulatory diseases. Up and down the UK, children are facing their first Christmas in hospital; parents are recovering from a life-changing stroke or vascular dementia diagnosis and families are facing their first Christmas without a loved one.
By donating to the British Heart Foundation (BHF) this festive season, you will be making a huge difference to help keep more families together.
Donations to the BHF will go towards funding lifesaving research into heart and circulatory diseases. The BHF receives no government funding for research, so scientists in universities and research centres across Scotland rely hugely on donations to find new cures, treatments and ways to diagnose and prevent heart and circulatory conditions.
Please consider gifting a sprinkle of hope and happiness this Christmas and help us get one step closer to beating heartbreak forever in Scotland.
To donate, please visitwww.bhf.org.uk/Christmas
Merry Christmas!
Yours,
Amanda Bringans,
Director of fundraising at the BHF
Poppy appeal
Sir,
A massive thanks to all the shops, schools, businesses etc that displayed and helped fill the tins for the 2018 Brodick Poppy Appeal. The total raised this year was an excellent £2,043.16. To my loyal ladies who do the house to house collections and finally Karen and superstar Calum at the RBS who done a great job of counting all 39 tins. Many, many thanks to all.
Yours
Jill Bunyan,
Brodick Poppy Coordinator.
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