Today, the Garioch Area Committee met for the first time since the May elections in our home ground at Gordon House. Our last area committee meeting three weeks ago was held in Woodhill House because the chamber in Inverurie was being used for General Election work (what it really just three weeks ago??!).

Ward 13 (Westhill and District) items included an application for alterations and extension to the Milne Hall at Kirkton of Skene. After some discussion and hearing from hall committee member, Kenny Freeman, members agreed to defer the determination until a site visit which will take place on September 5th. You can view the report here.

I was delighted that we all agreed the recommendations to award £8,202 to Westhill District Amateur Swimming Club to purchase equipment which will enhance training across the district and a grant of £599.16 to Millbank & Tillyfourie Playing Field Committee to purchase an electricity generator. Millbank is one of the smaller communities in my ward who has a very active team of volunteers who don’t ask for much, so I was particularly pleased that Garioch Area Committee was able to agree this.

There was an application under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 to grant the extension of the hours of operation of a funfair at Echt Show from 1800 hrs – 2330 hrs on Friday 7th July, 2017 and from 1000 hrs – 0000 hrs on Saturday 8th July and this was duly granted.

Chief Inspector Murray Main presented us with a local area update with a verbal update on the local trends and issues. I was particularly pleased to hear that CI Main will be leading a Rural Crime working group to look at the incidents of crime unique to some of our more rural areas such as sheep-worrying, cattle rustling, theft of plant and hare coarsing; all crimes which have been reported in the press recently. I asked CI Main about how we can effectively report back to communities about the preventative work done in our area with regard to speeding and asked about the campaign targeting motorcycle safety. I was pleased to hear that the great work done by Police Scotland (and formerly Grampian Police) over a number of years on Operation Zenith is being carried forward.