By Mark Mackay

THE PLANNED G8 summit will bring massive disruption to Perthshire and Scotland as a whole, the Scottish National Party’s Roseanna Cunningham MSP has warned.

Ms Cunningham said Whitehall was misguided in its belief that the location of the July gathering of world leaders would offer protection to residents.

She warned that residents could expect “inconvenience” and “upheaval” and said they would demand results if this were to be justified.

The member for Perth has lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament calling for greater recognition of the disruption it will cause and agreement that this can only be validated by successful decisions with regards to the developing world.

She said, “I have been warning for months that the G8 summit planned for Gleneagles Hotel this summer will bring with it massive disruption not just to Perthshire, but to the whole of Scotland.

“Far from being the ‘remote’ location Whitehall seems to think it is, the Gleneagles Hotel is in the heart of Scotland—right beside the A9, Scotland’s main north-south arterial highway.

“The Government have continually tried to downplay the impact their decision to hold this summit at Gleneagles will have.

“Only recently the Foreign Office have confirmed that they have washed their hands of any responsibility for compensating residents for any damage caused.

“The disruption and upheaval the G8 will bring to my constituency will be immense and the people of Perthshire will only agree that it has been worth it if something positive of real note can come out of it for the under-developed countries.”

Ms Cunningham’s motion asks that the Parliament recognise “that the G8 summit...offers an opportunity for Scotland to debate issues related to international aid, trade justice and debt relief,” but also that, “there will be inconvenience and disruption to many communities as a result of hosting this summit.”

It goes on to call for the Parliament to support the view, “that such disruption can only be justified if the representatives of those countries with the greatest economic power arrive at decisions that will allow countries in the developing world to grow and prosper at their own pace.”