November this year marks the halfway point of the current council five year term. It’s been a fairly challenging time as we had to grapple with continued underfunding of our council from the Scottish Government which impacts on council services, our partners in the health and social care partnership, and our leisure trust. Ultimately the underfunding affects jobs and services for our communities and puts more of the strain onto our residents.
The underfunding has coincided with the cost of living crisis which meant the costs of goods and services in local shops continued to increase, the costs of materials and borrowing also increased for housebuilding and construction sectors and of course, the costs of fuel, travel and leisure have gone through the roof. Most of these increases are out with our control and in the main we have to either shop around for a better deal, make better use of the little we have, and in some cases go without.
The UK budget announced another £1.5 billion for Scotland in 2024 with yet another uplift of £3.4 billion in 2025. I’m hoping that the Scottish Government doesn’t waste this much-needed public resource and it uses some of it to help struggling councils like West Dunbartonshire as we try to steer a route to financial sustainability. If the Scottish Government squander this significant uplift in resources then councils like West Dunbartonshire would be set on a course towards certain bankruptcy.
Despite the continued underfunding and the dark cloud of financial uncertainty hanging over us, it’s been more or less business as usual for the council over the past two and a half years. We continue to invest in our council houses, maintaining, repairing, and building more to meet the increasing demand for more rented houses.
We continue to invest in our communities with the Dumbarton Levelling-Up Project progressing, and the Clydebank one which is just getting started. So in total, we would have received £40m of UK investment into West Dunbartonshire.
We will also benefit from additional capital funding from the City Deal infrastructure distribution resulting in an extra £7 million to construct three new buildings for commercial space in our towns with £3m to be spent on Lomond Industrial Estate in Alexandria, another £3m for John Knox Street in Clydebank, and a further £1m to be spent in Ash Road in Dumbarton.
The Scottish Government announced that the Place Based Investment funding would be cut which would have directly impacted on the Alexandria Masterplan projects next year. But the council's Regeneration Team and our Assets Team have ensured that Alexandria gets the money that had been promised and this means that the Vale of Leven doesn’t miss out and will receive £1.58 million of investment in Alexandria over the coming two years to support the Alexandria Masterplan projects and the Mitchell Way environmental improvements.
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