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One of my three local councillors, David Meikle, yesterday resigned from the Glasgow Council planning committee. He gave a statement:

Following today’s outrageous decision to approve Go Ape I can no longer sit as a member of the Planning Committee. Go Ape is a fantastic facility but will, in my opinion, have a detrimental impact on the North Wood and the Burrell Collection.

The proposal my fellow councillors approved today is just a step too far and unlike the 14 councillors who approved this scheme I have listened to my constituents, to the people of Glasgow and the Save Pollok Park group, who made a convincing argument against the application at today’s hearing. This is why I have resigned from the Committee.”

I’m in two minds about Councillor Meikle’s decision here. On the one hand, and taken at face value, he appears to have taken a principled stand against a farcical committee decision that is unwanted in a treasured part of Glasgow. So he feels it’s not something he can remain a part of. It certainly has some integrity about it. Whilst I’m yet to see how each of the councillors on the committee voted, it sounds like it was largely down party lines, with all bar one Labour councillor voting to instruction, and a few SNP councillors doing similar for reasons I can’t understand. I have absolutely no confidence the council planning committee takes an objective point of view to what’s put before it, and I don’t think I could be a part of such a body if I were in his position.

On the other hand, and reading between the lines somewhat, it’s a perfect local campaign for a conservative politician to campaign for: let’s keep the park as it is, look how Labour ruined our park, etc. etc. But mostly I’m worried that - on the basis it is a matter of principle - we’ve now gone and lost one of the few committee members who seemed to have had any sense in this matter. So we’re probably in line for a further muppet on the committee, and even worse decisions. Presuming the Labour councillors didn’t always come down on party political lines and gave his minority vote a bit more sway.

This shouldn’t be read as criticism of Cllr Meikle (or be something that puts him off doing what he’s doing, largely, quite well in our ward). He is, after all, one of the very few Glasgow councillors who feels it’s appropriate to put a public record of what he’s up to and thinking (See www.david4pollokshields.com, but feel free to skip the party political stuff; I certainly do).

I certainly wish I could analyse some of the decisions of my other councillors in the same detail, but it’s hard to critique the views and actions of people who stay absolutely silent…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Glasgow, Politics, Scotland, Scottish Politics, Southside. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.