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Is Council Chief Peddling Blind?

JUST WHAT is motivating Ken MacDonald, Perth & Kinross Council’s Economic Development chief? Is he a secret cycling groupy? Does he think that blindly backing the proposed forthcoming biking marathon, that will close most of our roads on 24 June, is a good career move? Does he love Highland Perthshire so much that he enjoys stomping around our straths and glens acting as cheerleader for the organisers Etape Caledonia?

    This is not just a cynical Comment rant, but a reaction to something unsettling about the way our council is responding to the very serious concerns many Highland Perthshire people have about the cycle marathon proposed for our doorstep.

It is not just that more than 80 miles of our roads will be closed for up to five hours on a busy summer Sunday, trapping many people in their homes. It is not just that up to 2,500 cyclists and their friends will flood into the area at a time when there is virtually no accommodation to spare.

It is not even that Ken MacDonald has helped out Etape (a south of England company) with a £20,000 grant towards its losses, with more in years to come, raising the question from many local businesses: “Why can’t we get that sort of public support?”

Many people would have welcomed an event of this sort if it had been handled differently. The big worry is that Perth and Kinross council, for whom in this instance Ken MacDonald is the embodiment, seems to have forgotten what local democracy is all about.

Ken Knows Best

His Enterprise and Infrastructure Committee made the decision to back the event as long ago as last November. No doubt it was well-intentioned, but it happened without any proper local soundings being taken. A so-called consultation meeting with community councils on a snowy night in Pitlochry in January was poorly attended but by then it was too late – it was a fait accompli.

Since then he has been at nearly every local meeting, some in which he faced vitriolic opposition, arguing that what he had helped to instigate was good for our community, even though the community might not yet realise it.

In a nutshell, the message was, “I’m your economic expert and I know best.”A more humble council official might have apologised at all the fuss his incompetent handling of this affair has caused, but not Ken MacDonald.

When the public got wind of what was being foisted on it in March, and fury began to mount, his reaction would have done credit to Alistair Campbell. A propaganda campaign has been launched mixing spin-doctoring with the pretence that our hearts and minds have been won over.

Read the press releases issuing from P&K HQ and you would have no hint there was the least bit of dissent. Etape Caledonia has been accorded P&K’s unstinting support, and masses of unpaid uncritical publicity, while the many local businesses that will be adversely affected are left helpless to lick their wounds.

So concerned is Ken Lyall, handsomely re-elected as councillor for the new Highland Perthshire ward, that he is calling on Ken MacDonald to back down, cancel the event for this year and begin proper consultation if it is to be held in 2008.

C’llr Lyall has demanded a full public apology from MacDonald and his officers for the mistakes that have been made. His letter to the hapless bureaucrat describes public reaction while he was out election canvassing: “There are literally hundreds of people that are very angry at the event, many of which would have supported the event if consultation was done in a proper manner.”

In a statement Ken Lyall added: “As the previous councillor for the Breadalbane Ward, and now councillor for the existing larger Highland ward, my position regarding the Etape cycle event in June is unchanged. I do not think that the Council’s Economic Development officers, with Mr Ken McDonald being the head of Department, have in any way consulted with the public soon enough or in sufficient depth.

“For that reason I would reiterate that a public apology should be issued to the communities and to the local elected members. The principle of the event was agreed by Councillors and the officers were told then to go and consult (this being at the end of October 2006).

“This clearly did not happen to an appropriate level. Communities were told of a possible event but without any detail, and that is not consultation. As soon as the full plans/proposals were known, then the consultation can take place. This should have been at least six months ago.

“The cleanest option would be to cancel the proposed event this year and start to properly consult for next year, and I will argue that. Whether or not that suggestion is taken up, I will still strongly request an apology.”

Ken Lyall concluded: “I should state that the cycle event could be very good economically for the area, and I agreed that it potentially could take place, but NOT without proper, full consultation regarding route, date and timings.”

Council Response

In an effort to discover the reasons behind the council’s staunch backing for the cycle marathon, and particularly its claim that it would bring £500,000 into the area, Comment sent a list of questions to Ken MacDonald. Eventually a reply came from Joanne Deponio, his Events Manager. She said ‘the model’ from which the £500,000 figure was derived used two sources of data - the event organisers provided the number of participants and accompanying family/friends, and EventScotland provided average spend figures for day and overnight visitors.

She added: “As part of monitoring the impact of the Perth & Kinross Events Strategy & Action Plan it is important the Council undertakes a small number of full economic impact assessments per year to build up a picture of the importance of variety of events to the local economy.

“In previous years we have evaluated the Perth Festival of the Arts, Scottish Fair and the Enchanted Forest and this year we will evaluate the Etape Caledonia. We often receive part-funding from partners and I understand this will also be the case for the Etape Caledonia study.”

In accord with the council’s view that local opposition is minimal, she added “Our information days in Kinloch Rannoch, Aberfeldy and Pitlochry were very successful and I can confirm that we had a positive response from most of the residents and businesses who attended - 80% of the attendees were supportive of the event.”

Organiser’s Response

In an effort to extract information directly from the organisers, a local businessman wrote to Etape Caledonia boss Kevin Stewart. The businessman, who does not want to be named, asked: “Why do we need an event like this at this time of year? This event has been put together without any consideration for the local community, to whom it brings little but inconvenience.

“It will inconvenience all our other visitors who have no interest in cycle racing. ... It appears to have been endorsed by an outgoing administration, who have no authority to take such momentous decisions, apparently, behind closed doors, without announcing their decisions and without consultation with the community here.”

Kevin Stewart replied: “Meetings were held with elected councillors from the outset and they were positive about the event and the benefits it brought in their role of representing the community.

“I don’t believe that the event will inconvenience “all” the other visitors and there will be a proportion of them who will actually enjoy seeing this type of spectacle. I don’t believe it will drive regulars away for what is a few hours for one day in the year. On the contrary, I believe it will turn a large group of people into advocates of the area, and all it has to offer, who will become regulars in the future.”

But the businessman made this additional point: “Given the manner in which you have planned this and subsequently announced it at such short notice, I strongly recommend you cancel it, re-plan it with a new administration perhaps for next year and, at a more convenient time, think through the implications, along with consulting the local rural community ... I hope you will act on this advice.”

This clearly angered the Etape Caledonia boss, who responded: “I can only say that it is my intention to continue with the event this year, and I am not seeking an endorsement from you or any other individual who seems to consider the area their own personal fiefdom which they appear to have appointed themselves as spokesperson for without seeking election.”

It could be guessed from this that Mr Stewart is perfectly happy, however, to negotiate with an unelected Ken MacDonald, who treats the area as his personal fiefdom. So where does that leave Etape Caledonia and the resoundingly re-elected local councillor Ken Lyall with his consistent stance?

Questionable Assumption

Another local view came from Andrew Pointer, who runs Transcotland Holidays in Aberfeldy: In an email to Comment he said: “I question whether such one day events are worth the hassle they create. I also believe that Highland Perthshire already has a very successful tourism sector, and we do not need to expand it any more - ideally tourism should be the cream in an economy, not the mainstay.

“Many people visit and re-visit Highland Perthshire because, unlike the Lakes and Loch Lomond, it is not over-developed and crowded. As far as I know, the B&Bs and shops are doing okay, and the holiday houses are well booked up. 

“Do we really want Highland Perthshire to become like Lochaber was in July/August 2005 when many hundreds of tourists were sleeping in their cars because there was no available accommodation for miles in every direction?”

His support goes towards sustainable tourism, where the numbers of visitors are more in balance with the local population and its infrastructure.

Is ‘Sorry’ Enough?

Ken MacDonald’s department’s

•  cosy relationship with the event organisers;

•  its lack of any advance or genuine public consultation in spite of that being made a clear condition of the P&K support for the event;

•  its apparently poor understanding of the legal process required for the road closures (over which there is still great uncertainty); and

•  attempts to obfuscate and deny the genuine feeling of public anger being expressed,

all add up to such bungling as has brought the council’s name into serious disrepute over this issue.

The incoming P&K administration would do well to evaluate the performance and assess the suitability of such timeserved managerial fixtures on its offical letterheads, and to consider making a clean start with its term in office.