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Dear Constituent,

Subway modernization campaign

SPT Subway trainI am pressing for the proper investment needed to secure the future of the SPT Subway system and to ensure it provides the service people need, by extending opening hours, especially at weekends.

In Parliament, I secured a debate on the issue, and will continue to campaign for a comprehensive redevelopment of the SPT Subway system by making our very robust case to the Scottish Government.

  • If you would like to support my campaign for a comprehensive redevelopment of the Subway and to extend opening hours, please click here.

For its part, the Scottish Government has a duty to support the business case for modernization. To make it all happen, £6 million of investment would need to be provided every year for 10 years. That would allow SPT to borrow to meet the costs of the project. The plan is modest and sensible, given what it can achieve. The investment would not even be needed in the earlier years of the project, but there must be a commitment to it in the Scottish budget.

If it were modernized and revamped, the subway, which carries 14 million or so passengers each year, could transport up to 18 million passengers by 2040, and it would deliver £280 million-worth of transport economic benefits.

I have always voiced my support for Glasgow’s underground and have consistently called for its operating hours to be extended. I believe that the modernization programme I am pushing for would allow that to happen. I fail to see why the underground’s ticket office closes at the same time as our shops close their doors on Sunday, at 6 pm. Moreover, people who want to travel after 11 pm cannot use the subway to get home.

Glasgow's commuter economy depends heavily on the underground, which works in interchange conjunction with the suburban electric rail network. A miniature underground system that was built in 1896 and modernized substantially only in the 1970s deserves investment now.

The Subway is now a link of critical importance, not just to the city of Glasgow but to the Scottish economy as a whole, not least because of the Scottish Government's failure to support the vital Glasgow Crossrail project, which would finally join up Glasgow's heavy rail district network, the largest and most important suburban and regional passenger rail network outside of London.

I hope therefore, that the Scottish Government will now see sense when it comes to the renewed importance of the ageing Subway to making the Strathclyde Central Area network work effectively.

They must now make the correct choice on the issue of the Subway and support the plan and provide the investment that is needed.

  • If you would like to support my campaign for a comprehensive redevelopment of the Subway and to extend opening hours, please click here.

Save the Cheque

Blank cheque being written onI have called on the UK Payment Council to reconsider their decision to phase out cheques by 2018.

The decision to withdraw cheques as a method of payment will have a negative impact on small businesses, charities and the elderly.

Some stores have already phased out their use and the banks are now set to follow suit, without any consultation with the tax payers who have kept them in business.

Withdrawal of the cheque from circulation may save money for the big banks, but it will jeopardize the already fragile future of many small businesses in Scotland, as Colin Borland of the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland explained:

“Cheques are vital to small business – over half use them to pay suppliers and get paid in the same way. Removing this crucial business tool will drive up costs and make firms less competitive.

“The removal of cheques is being imposed on us without any idea about what is going to replace them. Is, say, the self-employed tradesman who’s out on the road all day going to have the expense and inconvenience of hauling a mobile card machine with him everywhere?

“We are valuable customers for the banks and they should be going out of their way to meet our needs, not the other way around”, added Mr Borland.

SMILE for Self Management

Long Term Conditions Alliance Scotland logoI am proud to support a new campaign by the Long Term Conditions Alliance Scotland (LTCAS), which exists to bring together over 100 voluntary and community organizations that support and represent people living with long term conditions.

Self management is not about replacing services.

It is about ensuring that individuals have ownership over the management of their life and condition(s). Empowering individuals allows people with long term conditions, and their unpaid carers, to make decisions that best suit their own needs.

In Glasgow Kelvin, 28, 645 people live with a long term condition (Scottish Health Survey, 2003). The Self Management Fund for Scotland, administered by LTCAS, is supporting 81 projects. The Self Management Fund for Scotland, administered by LTCAS, is supporting a number of projects. In Glasgow Revive MS received £36,238 to develop its existing exercise programme. The organization also plans to establish exercise classes in two new areas, where the demand for appropriate exercise from those living with multiple sclerosis is high. In addition, the organization has established two peer led support groups.

Self management has the potential to improve the lives of the 2 million people who live with one or more long term condition in Scotland. With the number of people living with a long term condition increasing, there has never been a more important time for the Scottish Government to show their support for self management.

Otago Lane campaign update

Submissions have now closed in the period available for filing objections to the plans by developer Otago Street Limited to build a massive block of flats in a tiny lane in the city's west end. 

I believe that the project is not suitable for this small lane and would put an unbearable strain on parking and the local service infrastructure which is limited in capacity in this already very heavily developed area of our city.

I have been campaigning and lobbying vigorously against these ill conceived proposals.  I wrote directly to concerned residents in the entire area surrounding Otago Lane to give them notice of how to object and the objection period in order to ensure a co-ordinated, powerful voice on the issue arose from our local community. 

I am grateful to many people who copied me in to their own letters of objection, or passed on their names to me, wishing to make an objection.  We now await the decision, having submitted my own official objection along with many residents to the City Council's planning department. 

 

Best Wishes


Pauline McNeill MSP
for Glasgow Kelvin

Updated 12 July 2010

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