Councillors clash over Dirtpot
Graham Ford • Published 10 Feb 2012 09:30
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A ROW has broken out between three Peebles councillors over future improvements at Dirtpot Corner.
Fury erupted during the Council Budget proposals for 2012/13 which were being presented to a full meeting of Scottish Borders Council yesterday morning (Thursday) when Councillors Graham Garvie and Gavin Logan accused Councillor William Archibald of being unprofessional in his approach to finding a solution to the Dirtpot Corner saga.
An 11th hour proposal was tabled by the SNP SBC Councillors asking for £1 million from the revenue reserve to be transferred to the capital budget to allow commencement of the Dirtpot Capital works in the forthcoming financial year.
Despite passionate pleas from SNP councillors, other elected members including fellow Peebles councillors Graham Garvie and Gavin Logan refused point blank to raid the reserves to deal with the complications at Dirtpot Corner.
The problems have been ongoing since 2003, when the A72 was closed for six weeks following a landslide which left Innerleithen residents largely cut off to the west with no suitable alternative route.
The SNP proposal was voted down by 23 votes to five prompting Councillor Archibald to question the loyalty of the other Peeblesshire representatives to their constituents who are affected by the Dirtpot issue.
He said: "The Council doesn't seem to want to listen to reason on this issue.
"They have adopted an approach that seems to be willing to throw more money down a route that they have done before regarding remedial work, and by the time they have finished it could well have reached around £1 million.
"I am angry that I have been accused of bringing this up because there is an election round the corner. But I have been talking about this since I was elected. It has remained a hot issue since, and I believe that by postponing the vital work on this corner it will go down very badly with the community councils of Peebles and Innerleithen to name just two.
"Not only has the hillside at Dirtpot Corner been allowed to slip but so has the whole project to improve it. Improvements have been earmarked for so far in the future that it is essentially meaningless."
The refusal to prise money from the reserve fund to tackle the Dirtpot issue effectively means that no major work on the road realignment will be carried out until 2015-2018 at the earliest. Instead capital funds are being used to create a new sports facility at Peebles High School.
Defending his decision elected member for Tweeddale East Graham Garvie told the Peeblesshire News: "What you keep back for emergencies is important and we have a whole list of areas we need to be ready for, these include severe winter weather, a downturn in the economy, legal claims, possible waste penalties, severance and early retirement costs.
"It is a wise person that keeps some money back for these sorts of things.
"And also there are going to be even bigger reductions from central government over the next three years. So to start putting these schemes on the table without any consultation with anybody is just ludicrous, reckless and very unprofessional. I am just as passionate as the next person to see improvements to this stretch of road but the fact of the matter is that we have to analyse priorities. Peebles High School improvements which are a £5 million project is a far bigger priority than Dirtpot, but let it be stressed that we are attending to Dirtpot."
Councillor Logan added: "The funding gap will be around £2 million next year, £7 million the following year and to touch our reserves that have been prudently built up over a number of years would quite simply be reckless.
"RestabIlisation of the banking at Dirtpot is already taking place and will continue to do so. It is very unprofessional for a councillor to act in this way. I can assure people that this project will be done when the money is available."
In his speech to the Council, Leader David Parker warned that there is still a difficult road ahead when it comes to local authority finances. "We need to be very careful here when it comes to capital resources.
"We are now at the beginning of a three year spending review and are still in a period of austerity. We have been very careful to ensure that Scottish Borders Council has a sound platform fort he first year of this strategy and we need to be aware that we can only spend reserves once.
"The financial gap will become tougher to fill over the next three years and we need to hold on to our reserves as long as possible to keep us on the right financial course."
This article appeared in Peeblesshire News 10 Feb 12
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