North-east Conservatives have warned that in-fighting between local councillors could prove damaging to regeneration efforts in the area.
The party’s claim was made just days after SNP members on the Banff and Buchan area committee spoke against their leadership’s flagship policy which they branded “shambolic”.
Although supportive of the SNP-led Aberdeenshire Council’s plan to inject £5million into regeneration schemes in Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Banff and Macduff, party members joined opposition counterparts at last week’s meeting to criticise the deployment of the strategy.
The project would create working groups for each town to oversee regeneration efforts, but SNP councillors, John Cox and Hamish Partridge, condemned the make-up of these groups because only two of the five members will be appointed locally.
The remaining members will be appointed by the infrastructure services committee at Woodhill House.
Last night, Peter Chapman, a former Aberdeenshire councillor and Tory candidate for May’s Scottish Parliament election, said people in the north-east “deserve better”.
Mr Chapman added that in-fighting would only delay efforts to improve the region’s towns.
He said: “This is further delaying the implementation of the much needed and anticipated regeneration of Banff and Macduff which has been frozen for nearly two years.
“It is hard to see what benefit communities along the Banffshire and Buchan coast have seen from eight years of SNP government in Edinburgh.”
SNP stalwart Brian Topping had branded his colleagues “childish” at last week’s committee meeting for singling out the leaders of the authority’s administration for criticism, and said the proposals were a way to advance regeneration in the towns.
Mr Topping and councillors Charles Buchan and Ross Cassie voted in favour of the plans.
However, they were defeated seven votes to three in a series of motions which challenged the strategy.
The committee rejected the membership formula for the new local partnerships, and also proposed creating a fourth partnership, dividing Banff and Macduff into two bodies.
