CUMBERNAULD pitches no longer fit for purposes, says councillor

The report – commissioned at a cost of £10,000 by North Lanarkshire Council identified Cumbernauld as having no fewer than three out of the eight unusable council football pitches. Irate Scottish Nationalist councillor Tom Johnston has has accused NLC of neglect., however the coucnil says it has improved many and is continuing with improvement.

Councillor Johnston said: “Two blaes pitches have lain derelict beside Kildrum Primary and Abronhill Primary for at least 15 years, since the inception of North Lanarkshire Council in 1996. This committee is talking, grandly, about the legacy from the London Olympics. These schools are still waiting for the legacy from the Atlanta Olympics of 1996!

“We hear much talk of sport in schools, but the ordinary residents around Kildrum and Abronhill primaries can see for themselves 15 years of North Lanarkshire Council neglect of sports pitches at their two local schools.

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“The council likes to point out that it has created new 3G pitches in Cumbernauld, but the last statistic I saw showed that these were marginally below the population share,” he added.

However a spokesman from North Lanarkshire Council denied this, commenting: “When the authority was established we inherited a significant amount of blaes pitches so improving surfaces was a priority. Thanks to our investments NLC is now the envy of most other authorities in Scotland thanks to a combination of new pitches in our schools and stand alone ones.

“However, we are in no way complacent and we are determined to continue to drive up the standard.”