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Aug 11, 2023

Bill Heaney: new street lights are dim and dimmer

Which bright spark inflicted darkness on housing estates where people no longer

Which bright spark inflicted darkness on housing estates where people no longer feel safe?

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Will the last person to leave Dumbarton please switch off the lights?

Hold the bus. That has already happened here, has it not?

Council leader Martin Rooney even had the cheek to go on BBC television's Reporting Scotland programme to make the switch-off announcement.

That was not a very bright thing to do in all the circumstances.

Those Have You Switched Yet? television adverts must have been getting to him.

The Labour panjandrum proudly puffed out his chest and swore that there would be substantial savings for taxpayers if the council switched off the sodium light bulbs in our street lamps.

He ordered them to be replaced with LED lighting to save an estimated £450,000 a year.

Residents are now complaining that they have been plunged into darkness and subjected to unnecessary security risks. They are afraid to leave their homes at night.

The street lights in Dumbarton have become dimmer and dimmer in the past year or so.

That fits in well with the council's public image, which is that their ongoing mission is to keep us in the dark. When it comes to making decisions that the public don't like, there is no-one who can hold a candle to Martin Rooney.

My old Dumbarton school motto was Tradamus Lampada which, translated from the Latin, means We Carry the Torch.

Even the man who thought that up didn't mean it literally.

I don't know if Martin went to St Patrick's High School, though, or if he attended the Latin classes at my alma mater.

Had he done so, he could surely have come up with a better motto for West Dunbartonshire Council. Something like Semper Dimmer would now fit the bill.

Martin seems to have missed out though on all that amo, amas, amat stuff we were taught by Wee Doc and Pat McAuley or Binky. Who remembers Binky?

I remember watching that disastrous Reporting Scotland interview with Martin.

I recall it vividly because the BBC's local government correspondent fell out with me afterwards when I asked him why he didn't ever report the real stories in Dumbarton, like joint primary campuses and sites for new secondary schools.

And why all we ever heard about on Reporting Scotland were the "good news" stories from the council's PR department, which lacks a certain objectivity.

The spin doctors are paid enough to know that interviews like that one should only be agreed when changes have been made successfully and when all the widgets are in place and working well.

I may be doing Martin a disservice here though. He may not have taken Latin at school.

Like so many of our political leaders in the 21st century, Martin could have gone to Eton College and that explains why West Dunbartonshire is up to its knees in Eton mess. As you all know, we are in the middle of a Holyrood election right now, hoping to set our ship on a course to success.

You won't hear this often from me but pity the poor candidates.

Poor Jackie Baillie. She has to confess she represents the same party as our council's lame duck Labour administration. You won't see that on her posters.

Poor Gail Robertson, who is part of the SNP's equally lame opposition, is having to explain why the SNP government has been in power for the past 10 years and stood on the oxygen tubes supplying life to Vale of Leven Hospital.

Poor Maurice Corry. He's looking for a Tory slogan to put on his posters that won't offend either Boris Johnson or David Cameron. How about this one? Hokey Cokey Tory Europe ... You put one foot in and one foot out.

Poor Andrew Muir. He's the Independent candidate whose campaign is based on obtaining better mental health provision in West Dunbartonshire. He could leave his posters totally blank to indicate how much interest the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board takes in mental health issues around here.

Who would be a politician then in the 21st century?