‘SMART investment’ at a time of shrinking budgets is key to East Ayrshire Council’s efforts to reverse population decline in Cumnock and the surrounding area, according to the authority’s chief executive.
Eddie Fraser warns the local authority’s resources are “shrinking significantly” – making it even more important that where the council does have cash to invest, it makes what it believes are the right decisions on how to spend it.
Last year councillors endorsed major revisions to the authority’s £24.5 million CoRE (Community Renewable Energy) Project, planned for Knockroon in Cumnock, admitting that the pandemic, Brexit and high inflation rates had made the scheme unaffordable.
The local authority is also embarking on a “cross-cutting” review that could see scores of council jobs transferred to an arm’s length trust as a means of saving £27m over two years.
But Mr Fraser says the council has set aside £40m to invest in the area over the next 10 years – and has already begun working out the best way to spend the money.
Speaking exclusively to the Chronicle at the local authority’s Rothesay House building in Cumnock, Mr Fraser said: "The population decline absolutely does concern me. We talk about the money side of running the council, but the population side is a very important as well.
"There’s things to learn from other places and thinking about what we can do down and latch onto our selling point, which I’m certain is the environment.
"We’ve been given a bit of Government money for us to do a bit of work to see why the population in some of these areas is declining."
Turning to that pot of £40m, Mr Fraser said: “This is non-recurring money, meaning it’s effectively a one-off pot.
"We’ve been clear that we want to do something with it that will make a difference.
"We want to gather as much information as we can and then put forward proposals on what’s the best way to invest this."
Improvements to the area’s roads network, opening up Cumnock and the surrounding areas to motorists from further afield, are also high on the council’s agenda – though this, too, is an area where major funding decisions are required, after a bid for cash from the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund to upgrade the Bellfield Interchange in Kilmarnock, where the A76 meets the A77 and A71, was knocked back earlier this year.
READ MORE: Transport bosses slammed for 'scandalous' stance on Ayrshire interchange
"The Bellfield Interchange is the cross for Ayrshire,” Mr Fraser said. "It is important for us to improve that.
“We didn’t get the money we bid for to do that up, so we’re still going to look at how we can improve that.
"We think improving that can help to open up the south of the authority.
"Since the A77 was made to be a dual carriageway, that’s helped to improve the population in the likes of Stewarton, Fenwick and that end of Kilmarnock, which shows the impact that road improvements can have."
Mr Fraser was appointed as the council’s top official in November 2020, having previously been director of the East Ayrshire health and social care partnership.
He says that improving local schools as well as job opportunities is essential to keeping families in the area.
"You need to make sure you’ve got decent schools,” he said.
“Parents will move away if they don’t think the schools are good.
"If our local people can get decent jobs and apprenticeships at places like Emergency One, they’ll stay here and they’ll have families here, and it will make it a lot more sustainable.”
The CoRE project, first unveiled in the spring of 2021, was set to create a renewable energy innovation centre, costing around £16m, with a programme of ‘demonstrator projects’ coming in at another £8.5m.
But the initiative, which was to have been funded via the Ayrshire Growth Deal, using £17m in UK Government support and £7.5m from EAC, was officially ‘paused’ shortly after it secured planning approval in 2022.
The revised project aims, agreed last October, focus on skills and training as well as health and wellbeing, with an ‘innovation centre’, which had been part of the original proposals, no longer a priority.
"We’ve got big decisions to make about investment in the future,” Mr Fraser continued.
"The CoRE development is one of them. We can either spend a lot of money on a big building for this, and lesser money on the projects to go along with it. Or vice versa, we can have a smaller building and more local benefit and local employment.
"The council’s resources are shrinking significantly, so what we’re able to do is going to become less, but we’re still getting a lot of money, and it’s about how we invest that."
And despite the challenges facing the council in general, and the southern part of East Ayrshire in particular, Mr Fraser says the area still has plenty to be proud of – none more than its people.
“The people around here are really the beating heart of these communities,” he said.
“I come down every year and do the Cumnock Citizen of the Year and it’s amazing when you see all the volunteers.
“I think that community spirit is a real throwback to the coal mining days.
"Some of the community action plans, and how these places have been able to work together, are unbelievable.
"That’s what can provide a catalyst for the council, to work alongside communities to make further improvements.
"My favourite thing about these places is absolutely the people.
“Whenever I get out and get to things, the people are amazing. They really do make these places what they are."
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here