Distress over Highland war memorials neglect
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ANGRY councillors have called for heads to roll after it emerged a £300,000 war monument repair fund has been sitting untouched for a year with memorials left neglected.
The money was set aside in 2013 to clean-up town and village memorials in time for the 100th anniversary celebrations of the First World War earlier this month.
But the restoration plan for the memorials was delayed and is only now getting underway.
Carolyn Wilson, independent councillor for Cromarty Firth, said communities across the region, Alness in particular, were distressed at the condition of their war memorials, and hopes of getting them repaired soon were probably dashed.
"We all went away thinking that something was being done to follow this up and that the funding would be approved for this," she said.
"The war memorials look terrible. The community councils that I go to have spent the whole year trying to get the work done and they are not even getting a response from the council as to whether the work can be done now or two years down the line, or never.
"Somebody should have been working on this in the background. Somebody should own up to being responsible for this."
Council leader Drew Hendry echoed the call for immediate steps to free up the cash.
Michelle Morris, depute chief executive, said the message would be taken back to council officials.
"We understand and hear members concerns today and we’ll take that back to the service," she said. "We will take on board your complaints about not getting responses to emails. That’s not acceptable."
The council agreed last year that 173 war memorials would be repaired at a cost of £303,000, ahead of the 100th anniversary this month.
A total of £200,000 was allocated from the local authority’s capital budget and an application was being made to a £1 million Centenary Memorials Restoration Fund set up by the Scottish Government.
Councillors agreed that if this application was turned down, the local authority would meet the extra costs.
At the end of last year, councillors agreed to take the more realistic step of spreading that work out over four years.
At yesterday’s meeting, finance director Derek Yule was unable to say if any of the works had started. This information is expected to be reported early next week.
The council declined to comment on what had caused the hold-up but Mr Yule is relatively new to the service and all attentions have been focussed on improving the complaints-hit grass cutting and ground maintenance service.
David Alston, committee vice-chairman, said nothing now stood in the way of the upgrade works to war monuments.
"I am confident that our director is on top of this and that the work can progress," he added.
