West Lothian has been described as a wilderness with the grass becoming so long on some football pitches that games have had to be cancelled.
This is one part of council cuts that’s not working, according to the SNP group which slated the reduction in grounds maintenance at a meeting of the full council this week.
Councillor Frank Anderson, depute group leader, raised a motion calling for reports on how “poor service can be improved” . He said: “There are issues with both how the area looks and how it is perceived”
And he told the councillors: “I have no difficulty with wild meadows but in Almond Park there is grass that is almost 6ft tall. People will come into West Lothian and say to themselves ‘look at the state of the place’.”
He added that things were made worse in that pathways were cut to park benches inviting people to look out at a sea of long grass.
However Labour’s Tom Conn hit back, branding the motion as “shameless” given the council had been forced to make cut backs by budget cuts imposed by the Scottish Government.
A Labour amendment detailed cuts of £152m the council is required to make in five years. ” No organisation can sustain cuts without affecting the way it delivers a service,” he said. The amendment rejected a call for reports to improve poor service
Independent, Councillor Stuart Borrowman said: ” I think Frank is right. Blackridge Park is unusable most days. I think the Labour administration needs to have a rethink.”
The council introduced new rules for grass cutting and grounds maintenance this year on the back of staff cut backs. It did so in a summer which has seen heavy rain followed by hot spells which has led to a surge in grass growth – and subsequently in complaints from across the county.
The SNP motion was defeated by 16 votes to 12.
