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SHETLAND has been particularly severely hit by cuts to council spending – losing more than three times the national average in the past years – and is badly in need of greater public investment.
That is the message of Labour’s candidate for next month’s Scottish Parliament election, Martin Kerr, who is drawing attention to figures showing the isles lost £355 per person in local authority funding between 2013 and 2021 compared to a national real terms average of £95 per person.
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Only the Western Isles, at £522, fared worse while Orkney lost out on £59 per head according to the Scottish Parliament’s information centre: “When you look at that league table of cuts Shetland is almost right at the top,” Kerr tells
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SCOTTISH Labourâs Highlands and Islands lead list candidate Rhoda Grant said she remains very concerned at the way the Shetland College merger has been handled without parliamentary checks and balances over its proposed privatisation.
Grant has supported the EIS-FELA union and those in the community who want the merged college to be âincorporatedâ and to remain in public hands. The merger is set to go ahead on 1 August.
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âIt certainly sounds like a done deal now with no scrutiny of the collegeâs governance arrangements and of how privatisation will affect the staff and future monitoring of the public finances which are invested in the college despite it being a private limited company,â Grant said.
FEATURE: Spires Park: The seed that grew on Stoney ground
How a County Derry football club defied the worst recession in recent memory to develop their ground,
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Liam Tunney revisits the story of how Magherafelt Sky Blues future-proofed their facilities and defied the worst recession in living memory to build a lasting legacy for football in the area.
In 2006, Magherafelt Sky Blues were moving along nicely. The club had been invigorated at the turn of the Millennium and in the 2005-05 season they had narrowly missed out on the league title.
Hearts and minds were already looking to future progress on the field, but a sudden council decision was to plunge the club into uncertainty, inadvertently removing that field.
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A PROPOSAL by the SNP to establish a so-called island bond, which would offer young families up to £50,000 to stay in or move to island communities threatened by depopulation, has been dismissed as a bribe by Lib Dem candidate Beatrice Wishart.
In its manifesto launched on Thursday, the SNP also promises to consider fixed links as part of an islands connectivity plan, set up a rural entrepreneur fund, invest in better mobile phone coverage and deliver more employment opportunities for young people in island communities.
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Labour said bigger plans were required to stem depopulation, while the Conservatives found the policy proposal âpoorly thought outâ.
THE LOCAL Greens have expressed concern that two new Co-op supermarkets, planned for Sandwick and Scalloway, would threaten local shops and businesses as well as
compromise resilience and food security.
The partyâs Highlands and Islands list candidate Debra Nicolson said that progress in in developing a high quality sustainable food industry locally could be undermined if the proposals get the go ahead.
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âMore supermarkets would lead to vulnerability and dependence, and would represent a huge step backwards for Shetland,â she said.
Shetlandâs supermarket companies are paying poor prices to local producers and extracting large amounts of wealth for executives and shareholders outwith Shetland, the party added.