Green group rocked by missing minutes

It’s emerged that Cumbernauld Environmental Society has no public record of the content of its meeting in May which dealt with the thorny topic of fracking.

The meeting caused a storm of protest after Aberdeen-based drilling firm Reach CSG said it didn’t want to outrule drilling work at Deerdykes.

CES secretary Barry McComish has however failed to write up the notes taken at the meeting, blaming a ‘‘technical issue.’’

But that’s just not good enough according to local Councillor Paddy Hogg who is also taking issue with the fact that repeated requests for the minutes went repeatedly unanswered.

The Scottish Nationalist said “I find this excuse unbelievable and I also believe that someone has brought pressure to bear to stop these minutes being written up and published.

This has been vigorously denied in an email by Mr McComish who said: ‘‘To say that the minutes were not issued because of some paranoid plot is without foundation. The error is my responsibility . For my failure to issue these, I’ve offered my personal apologies.’’

Bobby Johnstone of CES said: “With regard to these minutes, I’ll say what I said at our recent meeting: I cannot defend the indefensible. However, if anyone has any complaints about the way our organisation is being run, I would happily invite them along to our next meeting where they will be made very welcome.

Mr Johnstone then added: “We are a non-political group and I won’t have anyone bringing politics into it,’’ He then claimed that differing stances between Mr Hogg and Mr McComish on the recent referendum were to blame for the row.