September 2011 (Alison McInnes)

Alison McInnes <info@alisonmcinnes.co.uk>

September 2011

September 1, 2011 12:01 AM

Summer in the North East

The end of Holyrood's summer recess is fast approaching, and it's been a busy couple of months for me here in the North East. As well as the meetings with constituents from across the region, I've also just finished moving into a new local office. My Aberdeenshire base is now in Ellon, at the Business Centre - as always you are very welcome to make an appointment to come along and have a chat about anything that I might be able to help you with.

North East Scotland Credit Union

Last week I was honoured to be asked along to open the North East Scotland Credit Union's newest community collection point at the Bridge Centre in Mintlaw. Being able to attend these types of events and support the local community is one of the nicest parts of an MSP's job.

NESCU itself is an excellent example of a local co-operative; a not-for-profit social enterprise that offers ethical banking and low cost loans. In addition to that, they work with local schools, helping to encourage the saving habit from a young age.

Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route

You will, of course, have seen that the AWPR was finally given the go-ahead recently, only for a further delay to be threatened by a fresh legal challenge. The ongoing delays are immensely frustrating to many of us in the North East - the AWPR is such an important infrastructure project for the area.

Making things even worse is that the continued delays to the AWPR are having a knock-on effect to other important improvement works in Aberdeenshire. The duelling of the Balmedie-Tipperty stretch of the A90 has already been rolled into the Peripheral Route works, and we're now going to start seeing other vital projects, like work on the Haudagain Roundabout, suffer as well.

Back to Parliament

The autumn session at Holyrood begins next week, and no doubt we'll be straight back into the swing of things. First up for me will be the Justice Committee's consideration of the Government's Anti-Sectarianism Bill. While I was obviously very pleased that the First Minister agreed to opposition calls to allow Parliament more time to consider the complex issues that the Bill will cover, the truth is that we will still be faced with an extremely tight timetable. Everyone agrees that we want to see an end to the kind of sectarian chanting and violence that marred the end of the last football season, which makes it even more vital that we get the legislation right.

We've actually just passed the 100-day milestone since the last election, and I think it's fair to say that the start to majority government in Scotland hasn't gone completely smoothly. There was a great deal of controversy over the rushed anti-sectarianism bill, as well as over the comments on the Supreme Court. The real problem though, was that these controversies deflected attention away from the things that would really make a difference to so many people.

For most of us in the North East, the biggest priorities are job opportunities for our young people, improving our local health care services, and making sure that local infrastructure projects are moved forward. Hopefully we'll be given time to address these issues in detail at Holyrood over the next few months.