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30th November 2006

Local Residents Charged to Attend Meeting on Community’s Future

Today Stewart Whyte, Conservative candidate for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine expressed his anger at local residents being charged £25 a head to attend a meeting on future plans for their community. Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce are holding a briefing meeting in Westhill on Thursday 7th December in order for offshore companies Acergy and Subsea 7 to explain their plans for new premises in the town. Westhill and District Residents' Association were invited to attend but told that they as non-members of the A&GCC they had to shell out £25 per person to attend. Mr Whyte said: "This is outrageous. W&DRA is non-profit making organisation, all our members are volunteers who freely give their time because they want to improve their community. To be charged £25 to hear about plans for the future of Westhill is a disgrace. As the key community group in the town we are entitled to be kept informed."

Mr Whyte recently gave up the chair of W&DRA but remains a committee member revealed that he has written to A&GCC asking that Ron McKail, current W&DRA chairman, be given a free invite so that the wider community can be informed and involved in the development of their town: "The Chamber of Commerce have shown crass insensitivity and how little they understand Westhill. The Residents' Association raises all its own funds and uses it to put up Christmas Lights and plant bulbs, we have very limited monies. I feel like all our hard work is being thrown back in our faces.

It is not too late for this to be resolved, however, and I ask that the Chamber of Commerce extent the hand of partnership to the people of Westhill."