by Councillor Douglas McAllister

Congratulations to the Clydebank Musical Society for their victory over the SNP administration in West Dunbartonshire.

The SNP introduced a new charging scale for our town hall. The SNP councillors in Clydebank decided to remove the charity discount for the use of the hall after 6pm, and at the same time increase the hire charges by 25 per cent.

This meant CMS’s costs rising by more than 200 per cent to put on their junior section show in October of this year – the cost of £4,000 doubled to in excess of £8,000.

The SNP seemed determined to price out local groups from the town hall. Their cynical aim to see it purely as a wedding venue and conference centre is to make money from the town hall rather than our community’s civic centre.

However, the SNP was forced into an embarrassing U-turn thanks to the brilliant campaign of the CMS. The CMS attempted to negotiate with the SNP councillors, who either ignored them or told them to find an alternative venue, and said they wouldn’t be coming back to the Town Hall.

The Labour group’s emergency motion to reintroduce the grant offering a 50 per cent discount to our local organisations was voted down by every SNP councillor.

The CMS members refused to accept this and within a week their online petition had the support of more than 3,600 signatures, coupled with the Post highlighting this issue on its front page.

Faced with the prospect of taking on the CMS, who have the support of the entire town, the SNP cobbled together a panic measure to offer to pay for the lighting and sound to allow the junior section’s show in October to go ahead.

However, this "quick fix" offers no comfort to the other groups forced out of the town hall by the SNP. Will the same deal be offered to our equally wonderful Mummers Theatre Group? Will the CMS be offered a long term financial package to ensure future use of the hall?

You can’t put a value on the unique opportunity offered by the CMS and Mummers to perform and take part in the performing arts on the stage of our town hall.

Generations have benefitted from this and gone into further education in the arts. By introducing these new charges the SNP have failed our youth and shamed our town. We should clear them out of the town hall – and not our local people!