We're being ripped off

Figures from the council's regeneration services department show that in the period 2004-2012 just 70 per person is being spent on regeneration in Cumbernauld Town Centre per resident,, a total of 3.5million since 2004/05. Cumbernauld's population is given as 50,670.

Bellshill Town Centre, by contrast, has had 522 per capita spent over the same period, for a total spend of 10.5 million. Bellshill's population is given as 20,200.

Kilsyth also fares better than Cumbernauld with a spend of 235 per head, totalling 8.9 million for its 30,790 population.

SNP councillors Willie Homer and Alan O'Brien claim these figures are damning proof that their political opponents are purposely neglecting Cumbernauld, the only town in North Lanarkshire where Labour members are a minority.

Councillor Alan O'Brien said: "The figures demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Labour politicians crying foul over Government town centre funding, as Jim McCabe (leader of the council) has done recently.

"I also have documented evidence that demonstrates that the government did in fact allow NLC to spend the allocated town centre funding in Cumbernauld but they opted not to. In addition there is further documented evidence that the funding for the Boulevard project was already agreed by NLC. In other words the money wasn't for a new project as it was with all the successful applications.

"Willie Homer, Jamie Hepburn and myself have regular town centre meetings with NLC officers regarding Cumbernauld Town Centre regeneration. At one of these meetings both Willie and Jamie warned them that the bid was unlikely to be successful because it was for an existing project.

"There is also a further situation that dovetails with the town centre funding cover up. I believe that the capital receipts from Cumbernauld have been sufficient to pay for every town centre in NLC, essentially the money raised here is used for every town centre in NLC except Cumbernauld.

"I have been trying to collate these figures, however, the council have been trying to block their release for reasons that have became obvious.

"I have ended up having to utilise an FOI request, but they are still attempting to block the figures which demon-strate that Cumbernauld is the council's cash cow."

Councillor Homer added: "At a recent full council meeting I put forward a motion welcoming the overall fund award, the second highest in the whole country.

"It was only really a hook to be able to raise NLC's lack of investment after a week of them attacking how much they got - remember they had just got the second biggest award - they didn't even attempt to welcome this but instead just attacked the Cumbernauld failure in your paper.

"They only appeared to want to highlight Cumbernauld, an SNP supporting area. Was this an attempt to undermine that support? You bet it was.

"Ironically they tried to spin that it was the SNP punishing a Labour voting area. Funny that, given that Labour-voting NLC got the second biggest award after that bastion of SNP voters, the City of Glasgow."