It HAS been a fantastic year for Drumchapel.

As you will be aware, there was a long-standing campaign to save the swimming pool in Drumchapel. This came about after a paper was leaked to the Clydebank Post’s sister paper, the Evening Times. It was from the minority administration’s depute leader, who chairs Glasgow Life, outlining that Drumchapel Pool was one of the options to be closed down.

I honestly believe if it was not for the Evening Times publishing that story and the campaign, which generated 3,500 signatures to support saving the pool, then Drumchapel Pool would have been closed.

It is simply down to public opinion that changed the minority administration’s mind with regards to not only Drumchapel Pool, but a number of other leisure facilities throughout the city.

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With regards to the bins, people may not be aware that their green refuse bins, which at this moment in time are collected fortnightly, are being moved to a three weekly pick-up as part of a pilot project and this will have a huge impact, particularly on families. In my opinion, it will inevitably impact on recycling too.

Furthermore, people may not be aware that some housing associations have introduced an additional payment for them to pull out the bins and to place them kerbside.

I refer to this as a “tenement tax”, which means that anyone living in a tenement owned/factored by a housing association could incur this extra charge. At this moment in time this is a public service, which is carried out by Glasgow City Council and I feel it should remain a public service.

It is my opinion that this is privatisation by the back door, which is all about savings and reducing the workforce. If it is rolled out throughout Glasgow, it will have a huge knock-on effect on people who live in the tenements where housing associations have already started charging and I think more housing associations will charge if they are forced to carry out this service.