Is Clydesdale District Council set to return?

The dismantling of South Lanarkshire Council and the return of more localised local government is the main recommendation of a Scottish Government-commissioned report into possible changes to the council system.

What the Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy appears to be proposing is a return to the district council system done away with the introduction of unitary authorities like South Lanarkshire in the mid-1990s.

The report doesn’t go into specific detail on how ‘local’ the new 100 Scottish councils to replace the existing 32 ‘unitary’ authorities should be so there is even a possibility that places like Lanark, Carluke and Biggar might have their own Town Councils, done away with in the 1970s.

What appears, however, to be the probable outcome would be a return to the pre-1994 District Councils: ie Clydesdale, Hamilton, East Kilbride, Monklands and Motherwell with a ‘re-born’ Lanarkshire County Council to run the large stategic services like education and roads.

For more on this story pick up a copy of this week’s Carluke and Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.