Maybe this is what Vincent is talking about on his Facebook page? Or the attempted takeover at NM?

>Councillor Vincent Waters
>Tho’ sad it’s necessary, pleased paper to council on tackling abuse of Comm Councils. >Behaviour of handful a disgrace, needs confronted.


It's really sad, we've seen members leave at Giffnock because of the ridiculous goings on. Most people join community councils because they want to give something back into their community. Much more productive, some would say, than holding a grudge and being bitter on websites. But we are seeing all over East Ren, people with absolutely no agenda, not interested in this website, never read a Briefing Note, being alienated by the actions of ERC.

Once again, ERC, you couldn't make it up! I think DJ has probably exploded, they'll be scraping bits of him off The Osprey.

Glad to see council officers are spending their time wisely.

East Renfrewshire Council has been accused of a “totalitarian motivated ploy” to control East Renfrewshire's Community Councils after setting out plans for disciplining at least three of the East Ren CC's for not signing up to the ERC dictated constitution.

The move has prompted fresh claims that ERC is attempting to operate like a North Korea.

The first thing totalitarian states do to consolidate absolute power is seize control of the newspapers.

Many feel that has already happened – by stealth, and now under a so called council democracy they are attempting to silence Community Councillors who are intent on acting on behalf of their residents and holding the council to account, and will not cosy up to the council.

There is a paper to be discussed next Wednesday 26th March 2014 at the full council in Eastwood Park.

In summary ERC are requesting the authority to remove administration funding, remove council support and assistance, and remove any recognition of them by the council, remove the right to be statutory consultees and remove the use of council facilities.(namely the use of council halls for meetings)

The three CC's affected so far are Clarkston, Thornliebank and Newton Mearns.

However the elected members are also being asked to approve these measures to be undertaken should any other CC's fail in the future to comply with ERC's directives. Link to the Council Paper



A decision will be made on Wednesday

I would have thought that in this day and age erc have more important issues to deal with than trying to pursue three community councils over changes to their constitution.

how much has this cost in time and resource's that we council tax payers pay for.

Surely the Council have an obligation to take the problems in chronological order. That means Giffnock is first. Why don't they let the public know the truth about all the problems, and see what the public think. As public servants, and not rulers, it is their duty - even though it looks like democracy has taken a back seat hereabouts.
Would someone please help us find a friendly newspaper which could put the truth out there. Some people are not scared of the truth. I am sure savio and his little team of followers at ERC are bricking it in case the national press get their teeth in to them.
Well, can we make them sweat??

lasercow wrote:



Lasercow, au contraire as Dell boy might say.
I am truly grateful and welcome this development for the following reasons:
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I'm just grateful they chose Friday night to launch this attack as weekends are perfect to gather the BN team together. This morning NMCC have already received £2300 in pledges of support if we were to lose our £700/annual allowance from ERC. Bit of an own goal I think.

Now, what does Gordon Ramsay call his one of his flagship London restaurants?

I won't point out the inaccuracies and falsehoods contained in this report, I'll leave that to the people involved, but I really think they've shot themselves in the foot with this one. They've made a mountain out of a molehill, alienated people who were on their side.

Funny, we've been here before...a massive fuss being made out of something with no actual substance...Giffnock Community Council? Accusations of law breaking and financial irregularities, yet the police were never informed, and in the end it appears there was no issue...now who was behind that again....

Look around the country - other councils are quite happy for CCs to change their constitutions as suits them - it's not as if any of the changes suggested here are particularly radical.