COMMUNITY COUNCIL JUNE 2016

Important announcement: from August’s community council meeting onwards the venue will be the Williamson Hall. Now there is a fuller attendance at our meetings we feel the hall offers more flexibility to cater for unpredictable numbers but there is the added bonus that the rental monies remain within the community rather than simply being recycled back to PKC as we formerly had when we used the school.

With the local by-election and then Scottish Parliament elections, business has been comparatively quiet but there are three topics to note:

The restructured community council seems to be working well as by allocated specific responsibilities to specific individuals we can draw on their experience and interests; this allows each of us to focus on our particular area and provides a single point of contact for the community. The community council remit is actually quite closely bounded by PKC’s operational policies so it is surprising that we are seeing increasing calls for community council involvement in initiatives such as healthcare in the community and anti-social behaviour: there is general agreement that none of us have the requisite qualifications, skills or experience to make a worthwhile contribution, we believe this is something far better and more effectively managed by health professionals and the police force.

It is gratifying and comforting to see regular police attendance at our meetings: it provides the community with the opportunity to raise issues and in return we hear first hand about how the police are tackling crime in our area. Police Scotland reassure us that crime is comparatively light within our area, what there is, is opportunistic so for our part we should ensure that sheds and garages are locked, tools removed overnight from vans but also that we remain vigilant to people and vehicles within our community. Police Scotland occasionally run crime awareness events, details of which we will post to the Abernethy Community Council website. April’s meeting saw a presentation on the proposed enlargement of the anaerobic digester within the Binn Eco Park. We had considerable concerns that a greatly enlarged facility would see a return of the odour problem that blighted our area; what we heard gave us some reassurance that the new operator takes seriously his responsibility to run the plant efficiently, effectively and “with zero effect on the community”. We remain optimistic but we made clear that we will call him to task for any breaches.    

Colin Morrison