During COVID-19 people in Drumchapel and Anniesland, and throughout Glasgow and indeed the country, have suffered terribly in so many ways.

One of the biggest issues has been the deterioration of people’s mental health. That is why it is so important that the community facilities across the city that are run by Glasgow Life start to reopen now.

These facilities play a huge role in facilitating social contact, particularly for our elderly, vulnerable and isolated residents. Yet still we have the SNP minority administration on Glasgow City Council playing a game of Russian roulette with the city’s residents over which venues should open to the public, and when, and which should stay shut.

Two large community centres in my ward, in Drumchapel and Netherton, are among the vital community venues in our city which are still waiting for reopening dates from Glasgow Life. Both of these facilities are well used by people who live locally and beyond.

I would like to remind people that a few years ago, before the pandemic dramatically changed all of our lives, a list of community facilities that Glasgow Life was considering closing for good was obtained and published by the media.

At the time, Glasgow Life denied it had any plans to close these facilities. But I believed then, and I still believe now, that if the media had not published that list, some of those venues would indeed have closed.

Doubt is not just hanging over these vital community facilities because of Covid: this administration was thinking about closing the doors long before the pandemic.

It has long been recognised that good mental health and good physical health go hand in hand. Keeping these essential community venues closed will do nothing to help our city’s poorest, most vulnerable and most isolated residents.

Last September the Scottish Government published a report which concluded that “economically disadvantaged people are more likely to experience poorer mental and physical wellbeing, lower life expectancy and feelings of loneliness, all of which either have already been impacted by Covid, or are likely to be impacted by an economic downturn and increased poverty”.

That’s a pretty straightforward conclusion, and one which I think most people would agree with. So my question to the SNP administration running the city is this: how can you justify withdrawing these vital leisure and sports facilities in poorer areas of Glasgow when your own SNP government at Holyrood has already stated in public how much harm this will do to the people you were elected to represent?