In case you missed it, The Herald carried a story yesterday about possible changes to Local Govenrment in Scotland that are apparently currently under consideration by the Scottish Executive. You can read it all at the link below, but the crux seems to be that they want to reduce the number of local authorities from 32 to 14 (this is broadly in line with what is currently happening in Northern Ireland where they are in the process of moving from 23 to 7 unitary authorities if memory serves me). At this stage it looks as if they favour merging Argyll and Bute Council with Highland Council. If this were to happen, the implications for this area, both good and bad, are huge. Presumably, Inverness would be the administrative HQ rather than Kilmory, which seems bizarre from a Kintyre perspective, but I guess with this area due to transfer to Highland Health Board a precedent has been set. The big questions I guess are
1. Would the new Council have more to spend on this area?
2. Would they be able to deliver better services compared to ABC ? (Anyone out there know their pedigree?)
3. Will the area be so big that they will have to break it into much smaller bites - potential for Kintyre to get a bit more autonomy?
4. What will the impact be on jobs in this area? More? Less?
There are more questions than answers here and of course it is not a firm proposal at this stage but this would be a good time to start the debate in this part of the world. A poll would be in order but I can't seem to find the option on the new fangled board. Anyone care to oblige? I would suggest that the question would be "Should Argyll and Bute Council be merged with Highland Council" and the responses should be YES, NO & DON'T KNOW
Here is the link to the Herald article, and if you click the PDF link at the top you will find a couple of maps which will allow you to contrast the current set-up with what is proposed at this stage.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/55898.html