BIG IN FALKRIK LATEST CASUALITY OF LABOUR / TORY CUTS

The hugely successful Big in Falkirk is the latest programme to be cut by the bungling Labour / Tory Administration within Falkirk Council.

Despite the fact Scotland's biggest street festival brings in around 100,000 visitors to the district therefore adds around £1m per year to the local economy the festival has been dropped entirely by Labour and Tory leaders.

Following hard on the heels of the closure of the Park Gallery this is another blow to the Arts community in particular but to young people in general.

SNP Falkirk North Member Cllr Cecil Meiklejohn argued that the festival should not be dropped on the basis of a single sheet report most of which was a series of positive reasons to retain the festival but this fell on deaf ears as Labour, Tory and former Independent Councillors voted down an SNP amendment to retain and restructure the event.

Said Cllr Meiklejohn,

"This Administration is piece by piece dismantling the achievements of the previous SNP led Administration.

It seems that no consultation is required when what appears to be a Tory led Administration makes a decision, just a dictatorial stance following private meetings held behind closed doors.

Gone is the type of initiative that brought the MOD to Falkirk, sought to make Callendar Park the premier events venue in central Scotland and raised the income from tourism 6% each and every year we were in office.

Instead we have a ramshackle Administration with neither ambition nor vision cutting and closing and returning Falkirk to the status of a backwater."

At the committee meeting young people in general were attacked by Labour member, John McLuckie and former Independent, Billy Buchanan, the latter of which spoke of the financial hard times ahead yet constantly demands higher expenditure for his own area with no real prospect of securing such.