First Minister John Swinney has set out two key issues he believes are challenging the area.
But the newly-appointed SNP leader is proud of the work that the area's MP has put in since 2019.
Mr Swinney visited Netherthird Community Centre this afternoon (Monday, May 27) as part of the election campaign, to show his support for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock's SNP candidate, Allan Dorans.
Mr Swinney meeting local representatives. (Image: NQ staff)
Allan Dorans is bidding for re-election, having taken on the seat from the Scottish Conservatives in 2019.
The First Minister met with local SNP councillors, Claire Leitch, William Lennox and Jim McMahon, as well as East Ayrshire Council leader, Douglas Reid.
He was then given a guided tour around Netherthird Community Centre to show all of the hard work put into the centre by Maggie Campbell and all of the Netherthird Initiative for Community Empowerment team.
Mr Swinney said: "I think ventures like Netherthird Community Centre illustrates what happens when you enable communities to decide and plan their own futures.
“Because this is a facility that was likely to be closed won, it’s been acquired by the community as a community asset transfer and look at the life that’s in it and all the good things that’s happening.
“Whether that’s about food support to people who are facing hardship in their own lives, a charity shop, a lovely café, training opportunities, support with mental health and 101 other things that are able to happen because there is a lovely, good-quality facility within the community, run by local people totally in touch with local people."
The First Minister was given a tour around Netherthird Community Centre. (Image: NQ staff)
John Swinney believes that there are two important factors that must be dealt with to allow the area to thrive.
According to Mr Swinney, housing and employment must be faced head-on.
He added: "With housing, we’ve got to make sure that people have adequate housing opportunities. Again, austerity has restricted our ability to do this.
“We’ve got a good record in Scotland in the building of affordable housing, but the austerity agenda makes that difficult.
“On employment, I’ve heard so many good stories of people who have supported into employment, so those are then people who become contributors to our society and they’ve got purpose in their lives.
“I think we all know that if you’ve got purpose in your life, a lot of things look after themselves.”
MP Allan Dorans is seeking re-election. (Image: NQ Archive)
The First Minister also believes that the constituency should be proud of the representative, who has been a "been a strong voice for Scotland".
Mr Swinney continued: "Allan has been a really effective member of parliament in this community.
"But he’s always made a strong contribution in the House of Commons and he’s been an authoritative figure and I think people in this community should feel a lot of pride in their elected representative and I want to make sure that Allan’s returned."
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