CHILDREN as young as eight were being allowed to vote for community projects in West Dunbartonshire, with funding of almost £500,000 up for grabs, it was claimed this week.

A total of £425,000 was made available for the third phase of community budgeting in West Dunbartonshire, with the money being distributed based on the results of votes cast online and at a special event in February.

The results were announced last Thursday at the Community Alliance Group meeting in Dumbarton.

But former West Dunbartonshire councillor Jackie Maceira, from Old Kilpatrick, claimed: “There was so much dishonesty in the voting system. The whole day was overrun by people voting multiple times for the same project. They were turning up in teams.

“The money was supposed to be spent on positive improvements for the whole of the community. One project got 2,200 votes. Others, who were being honest, were getting single figures.”

Another Community Alliance member, Rhona Young, said: “You couldn’t go in or you were being knocked over, it was so busy. Nothing was proved by this system. It was unfair.

“It should have been ‘one person one vote’. That was the only fair way to do it. There were children aged eight to 10 voting who have never contributed to society. Schools turned out en masse to vote for their projects.”

Alliance chair, Anne MacDougall commented: “It left a bad taste in the mouth.”

West Dunbartonshire Council allocated £1 million in February 2016 to support the delivery of Your Community schemes across West Dunbartonshire in 2016/17 and 2017/18, with £425,000 of that being used in a ‘participative budgeting’ scheme.

A total of 81 applications were received, with 56 projects going forward to an online vote, which closed on the day of last week’s meeting.

West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare was the runaway winner with 2,508 votes, with Clydebank Disability Group next highest with 1,455.

One group, Renton Craigandro pavilion, got 910 votes online and zero at the event, and were sixth highest.

West Dunbartonshire Council’s corporate and community planning manager, Amanda Coulthard, said: “We didn’t give permission for any project to canvas support. But if people are so determined to go that far in the process by multiple voting there was nothing we could do.”

Peter Barry, the council’s strategic lead for housing and employability, added: “Many attendees felt that the format of the voting session itself did not work well.

“Access to the voting posters was challenging, with many attendees attempting to vote at once.

“In addition some attendees were able to collect multiple voting stickers, which would have allowed them to cast more than the five votes allocated per person.”