My scanning of the Berwickshire has not been too thorough recently and I am indebted to a regular bloggee for sight of an article from last week’s edition. It was in the farming supplement for some reason. The Newspaper is very interested in the activities of our laird who although he is an East Lothian MSP is a Berwickshire man. I have been selective in this rant and omitted some of his remarks of possible lesser interest but the whole piece is available in the paper for 16 September
Toughest Task Yet For MSP – 16/9/04 – Berwickshire News.
East Lothian Labour MSP John Home Robertson became the first backbench MSP to speak in the new Scottish Parliament chamber at Holyrood when it opened last week. He spoke at the beginning of a debate on the Scottish Executive’s legislative programme for the coming year.
Speaking of his relief at the parliament finally being completed, Mr Home Robertson said: “As convener of the Holyrood progress group, I have spent many hours and some pretty traumatic times at Holyrood as a building site during the past four years. Frankly, I think is has been almost the toughest task that I have had in 25 years in parliament. There were some difficult times and some infuriating problems but, when I see the place today and, above all, when I see the expressions on the faces of people experiencing Holyrood for the first time, I know that we were right to persevere.”
The MSP argued that the building was the finest building to be built in Scotland in the last hundred hears and said: “It is the forum for the future of the people of Scotland. It is the permanent home for a parliament that can make the investment at a time when the Executive has also been increasing spending of Scotland’s public services.”
On housing, Mr Home Robertson one again raised the issue of what he said was a critical shortage of affordable rented housing in areas like East Lothian. The MSP, who hopes to influence housing policy in his new role on the Scottish Parliament’s communities committee, said: “I am determined to do everything that I can to help councils such as East Lothian Council to tackle our local housing crisis. If that means raising difficult questions about the right to buy we should not shirk that responsibility. I was delighted to hear the First Minister say that attention needs to be given to the housing crisis in such areas.”
End of extract from Article.
Some local people are hoping that the Member for East Lothian confines the quest for more affordable housing to his constituency rather than nearer to home. But given his offer of free land to the Berwickshire Housing Association to build 4 ‘affordable houses’ in his home village of Paxton this seems unlikely. His stated intention is to provide cheap rented accommodation for people in the village who cannot afford to find housing near to home. Unfortunately being local does not score highly in the points system used by the BHA (and all such bodies UK wide) in their allocation of cheap housing and it is more likely that say, a needy Portuguese fisherman working from Eyemouth gets any Association house in Paxton than one of the sons of the village. So the Laird’s generosity may prove to be misplaced as far as the locals are concerned. I am not entirely sure what the Community Council said about all this last Wednesday as I was unavoidably absent but in the past (reflecting it is believed the popular view) they have opposed any further development of any sort in a village which has expanded mightily in the past few years-and with 18 more buildings going up in the Orchard over the next 24 months I suspect there is no change in the public mood.
If the Community Council Minutes appear in the Berwickshire this coming Thursday we may get an up to date view of Vox Pop. Otherwise they may soon be avilable on the Berwickshire Community Council Forum Website at
www.bccforum.info Click on Communities and follow links to Minutes.
