A ‘hands off’ warning over common good cash has been delivered by Angus’s only independent councillor as the debate over county Christmas lights funding hots up.
Arbroath’s Bob Spink made no apology for the town’s healthy pot being in a position to provide up to £50,000 for a glittering display in 2011 after Angus SNP leader Helen Oswald said burghs with smaller or no common good funds were being unfairly disadvantaged.
The five-figure level of funding was agreed by special meetings of the council as a top limit of common good support, with high hopes Arbroath can lever vital cash from some of the major high street names to improve the local display.
Small upgrades to the town’s 2010 display will be made, but Mr Spink accepts this year would be a “stop-gap” and said it was important to move forward with a clear plan and recognition in other areas of Arbroath’s entitlement to use its common good fund as townsfolk and its elected representatives see fit.
“Common Good funds are a historic legacy granted to a burgh when given their Royal Charter and have nothing at all to do with Angus Council other than as administrators of the fund,” he said.
“In reality it is the property of the citizens of the burgh. Most of the parks and many of the prominent buildings constitutes the assets of the fund which are leased by Angus Council, payments from which form the revenue part of the fund and it is this revenue that is used for common good-funded project.
“Arbroath’s Christmas lighting display last year was disgraceful and the citizens of the town let elected members know it,” he said. “We do not aspire to compete with larger burghs elsewhere, no more than Carnoustie should aspire to equal Arbroath or to cast envious eyes on our common good fund.”
Mr Spink continued, “2010 is unfortunately going to be a stop-gap because the lights manufacturers have a sale period at the beginning of the year and in the interests of value for money it would not be sensible to spend large sums of money on something you can buy for half the price a couple of months later.
“But what I want to see is a definite plan for the way forward decided within the next couple of months, part of which should be to approach the major companies not as a burgh or a business association, but as a council to see what level of help they can provide.
“It need not be that in Arbroath’s case the common good will have to provide £50,000 of funding and hopefully if we can bring in other money then it will not be that sum, but that is the figure which has been agreed as the top limit and I make no apology that Arbroath common good fund may be used for that.”
Mr Spink said he feels Arbroath is a loser in the Christmas lights story.
“When the initial council annual spend of £125,000 on lights was being apportioned at council I raised again the unfairness of Arbroath’s share of this money being the same as for example Brechin, a town one third the size of Arbroath,” he said.
“I moved a fairer per capita apportionment but failed to get a seconder. I still maintain this is prejudiced against the taxpayers of Arbroath who incidentally account for more than one quarter of Angus’s population.
“Thank goodness we have a healthy common good fund which we can utilise to go at least part way towards the redress of this injustice.”