THE last few weeks and months have been really busy as we completed the final cycle of committee meetings and council meetings before the summer break.

This coincided with campaigning for a successful by-election which my colleague Fiona Hennebry won with almost 50 per cent of the vote in the SNP’s strongest ward; and the campaigning activity increased further when the UK General Election was called but all of our hard work was worth it to see our candidate Provost Douglas McAllister elected as our MP with almost 50 per cent of the vote and with a swing of almost 20 per cent from SNP to Labour.

I know Douglas will be a fantastic member of parliament for the West Dunbartonshire Constituency and I am really looking forward to working with him in his new role.

I would also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our previous MP, Martin Docherty Hughes for all the help and assistance he has given to me and my family and our campaign to bring my brother Jagtar Singh Johal home.

He helped to keep the plight of my brother to the forefront by lending his support and I will be forever grateful to him for being there for us at our time of need.

Turning to more local issues, I am delighted that the council has funded the Summer SHINE Programme, which is being delivered by a range of community groups and will give our young people lots of things to do over the long summer holidays.

READ MORE: New Labour MP for West Dunbartonshire sworn in at Westminster

I am also pleased to learn that fourteen youth groups have secured a share of the £100,000 funding from the Youth Success Fund to support their projects for young people.

As well as this, the Council has a series of free Family Fun Days, Lawn Games, Libraries and Cultural activities taking place for young people over the summer.

We also had West Dunbartonshire Leisure Trust running a swim safety event and has included free swimming for young people over the summer holiday period.

The big summer event of course will be the Scottish Pipe Band Championships which will be held at Levengrove Park on Saturday, July 27.

There is no entry cost to the Scottish Pipe Band Championships so hopefully we get some good sunny weather and lots of local residents coming along to watch and hear the day long pipes and drums competitions, visit the various stalls, and for the young people and those young at heart, to come along and enjoy all the fun of the fair.

I know how hard it can be for struggling families over the summer so I hope that everyone gets a chance to make use of the many free activities and I hope you all have a good summer break, sharing time with friends and family, visiting the local parks, libraries and just getting out and about and the local area and make the best of our Scottish summer.