Published: Wednesday, 10th March, 2010 9:53am

Democratic rights

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The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) predicted when the SNP privatised the Vale of Leven Academy that the costs to small local sports clubs would rocket.

The SNP denied this as scaremongering at the time.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Certain SNP councillors criticise the behaviour of some young people, but by their own actions the SNP is forcing more and more young people onto the streets instead of being able to access sports facilities in the evenings and at weekends at a reasonable cost to them and their families.

When the SNP handed over the ownership of the Vale Academy and the sports facilities to the private company BAM, it was not rocket science to understand that BAM wanted to maximise its profits for its private shareholders, hence the exorbitant costs to use facilities that were once in the public sector and could be used at affordable rates for groups.

Next year in the council's financial figures local people will see for the first time the true costs of PPP which will deliver huge profits, paid for by the Council Tax payers, for BAM courtesy of the SNP.

The £70 charge from the SNP to use a football pitch for 90 minutes for children is just the start.

The next big project where the SNP is intending to get rid of public assets is the transfer of 5,000 council houses out of public ownership without all tenants having a vote on whether they want to remain a council tenant or transfer to another landlord.

Last week the SNP voted down a proposal by the SSP to give all council tenants in West Dunbartonshire a vote on this critical matter.

The SNP refusal to trust the judgement of our tenants on this matter is negligent in the extreme.

All tenants in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Stirling, Aberdeen, Inverclyde, to name but a few councils in Scotland, have been given a vote in a ballot on a stock transfer.

Why is the SNP denying West Dunbartonshire tenants the same democratic right?

Councillor Jim Bollan, Scottish Socialist Party, Leven Ward