How stupid can West Lothian Council get?

I'm sure West Lothian Council are not alone in this appalling lack of foresight, but I am absolutely livid that they have decided to carry out major road repairs on the Eliburn North roundabout and its approach roads on one of the busiest junctions in Livingston just as the schools go back.

They have had six weeks worth of holiday from school related traffic to get this sorted and they haven't bothered.

But it's ok, because I can turn right out of my house instead of left and go the other way round. It's a bit longer, but hey.

Except they're digging that road up too!

For those people who have kids to get to high school in one part of town and to primary schools up here, this is going to be an absolute nightmare. Thank you, West Lothian Council for making our lives a bit more needlessly stressful and complicated. I despair.

West Lothian Council's Schools Cop Out

West Lothian Council has reached a baffling decision that is the worst of all worlds as regards schools opening tomorrow.

I'll post the ten announcements made on the Council's excellent Twitter feed  While the Council has in general done very well in horrific circumstances, I think they've mucked up here, especially as regards primary schools.

I have the info on schools that you are waiting for, it will take quite a few posts to share. Please read the info for parents.

Given current road conditions it is not possible for the council to guarantee school transport.

as it is the responsibility of the School Transport Operator to risk assess this provision.

When schools re-open, travel to and from school will, in many instances remain difficult.

Parents/carers are advised to check that pupils can get to and from school safely before they set out.

The decision to access schools when conditions could be difficult can only be made by the parent/carer.

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December : All special schools and all special classes in primary schools.

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December : All Nursery schools and all nursery classes and wraparound care provision.

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December: Linlithgow Primary School; Bellsquarry Primary School and Kirknewton Primary School +

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 Dec: Pumpherston and Uphall Station Community Primary School; Westfield Primary School +

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December: Torphichen Primary School.

Please read the 10 posts above  carefully - apart from those noted all other Primary Schools in West Lothian will be open.

You may not know this but I'm not much of a meteorologist. I'm being asked to make an assessment of what the weather is likely to do over the 6 hour period of the school day, without access to the detailed forecasts that the Council has. We all know what happened the other day, and how things can change very quickly.


How am I supposed to know from here how conditions are up at the school and what the route is like before I set off?


In practice, and with the temperature forecast to be well below zero tomorrow, I suspect that I'll make the decision to keep Anna at home. I hope that she won't be marked down as an unauthorised absence because of my concern that it is simply not safe to get her from here to the school either on foot or in a car.


I get that the schools have been shut for 6 days out of the last 7 and that working parents are finding this a real struggle. They need the schools to be open, but surely not at any price.


I think the Council have copped out here. If the schools are open, then there needs to be transport provided for the people who normally get it and the roads in the vicinity need to be passable. Reports from parents who walked up on Monday even before the snow started falling said that the paths around our school hadn't been cleared and were absolutely treacherous. A tiny ribbon had been cleared in the playground and that was about it. Walking in those conditions is not an option for me and I'm not keen on driving there either given what I've heard about the road the school is on.


For secondary schools, the information is as follows:

The information about secondary schools is a bit more complicated for twitter - please read carefully.

The secondary school information which follows relates to the year groups that should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Armadale Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Bathgate Academy, S3 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Broxburn Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Deans Community High School, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Inveralmond Community High School, S3 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Linlithgow Academy, S1 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

St Kentigern’s Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

St Margaret’s Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

The James Young High School, S1 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

West Calder High School, S3 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Whitburn Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December

The illogicality of the Council's position is clear when you consider Meldrum Primary in Livingston. It is currently situated in a corner of Deans High School. These kids have been told their school is open, but S1-S3 Deans High pupils have been told not to. That makes no sense. Why is it safe for the wee ones and not for the 12-15 year olds.

My worry about our school as well is that a fair few teachers live out of town. I don't want them to be pressured to take unnecessary risks to get in and nor do I want to see a situation where parents have struggled to get their kids to school only to be called half way through the day or sooner and told to pick them up again because they don't have the staff cover. 


As far as I know, once a child is through the school gates, there must be a safe route for them to access the school that's been cleared of ice and snow. I understand that this was not the case at a fair number of schools on Monday. I don't feel that I can properly assess whether it's safe for my child to go to school unless I see a copy of the risk assessment that the head teacher has prepared and I know whether there is a safe path. 


The Council is expecting us to make an assessment on whether to send our children to school without giving us the proper information we need to make that assessment. It's a cop out on their part.  In the absence of that, I am likely to choose not to send my daughter.

West Lothian Council's excellent snow communications

I have been really impressed with the way West Lothian Council has kept in touch with people over the last week, since Snowmageddon hit.

I particularly want to highlight their helpline for vulnerable people, 01506 773440. This is what they've written about it on their Facebook page:

We are extremely concerned that there may be very vulnerable people in the community who may need urgent support. A special helpline 01506 773440 to deal solely with enquires for help from people who are frail, vulnerable or severely disabled and who have no other support. Staff from across the council have volunteered to make contact with people who need essential provisions or prescriptions. Please share this info.

I'm sure that people living in places like the Yorkshire Dales or Aberdeenshire will have seen conditions as bad as these before, but I don't remember ever having 23 inches of snow in my garden - and yes we've actually measured it. Like last Winter, I really appreciate the challenges faced by those who are working round the clock to try and get the routes clear. They seem to have been able to clear more residential estates more quickly than last year - although they've not yet been near mine.

As well as its own website with a dedicated snow page, the Council has been using social media. I don't know if Elaine Henderson, whose name is on the @lovewestlothian Twitter account is a real person with that name, or a generic made up name to make it more personal, but whoever she is, she's been marvellous all week, working long hours to give information not just about Council services but community events. Although they say that they can't reply to invididual queries on their Facebook page, it's clear from subsequent posts that they read what people are writing and respond accordingly. Apparently they've had praise for their "gritter twitter" on this Communities of Practice for public service website, but I'm not a member so I can't verify it.

What's been particularly good is that decisions on school closures have been made and put out there in good time. They'd decided by 12 noon on Wednesday to close for the rest of the week, giving parents time to sort their arrangements out. On Monday and Tuesday, the decisions about the next day were made by 4pm.  All the schools have been closed all week, a decision I wholeheartedly agree with. Blanket school closures took a bit of stick from Annabel Goldie at FMQs on Thursday, but I really can't imagine anywhere in West Lothian where it would have been safe enough to send the kids to school. We had 20-25cm falling during each night. There was no way on earth the routes to school could have been cleared by 8am with the equipment they had. There's definitely an argument that the head teachers have to be involved in the decision making process, but surely the Council knows what it can get done in terms of clearing routes across the whole patch. I think what I'm saying is that there needs to be some common sense in the process.

We still don't know if the schools will re-open on Monday. I'm sure they'll do all they can to ensure that they do, but ultimately it's the kids' safety that's most important. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to walk 5 year olds through 2 feet of snow when the roads were impassable - they would have been soaking wet by the time they got to school. My radiators have been stacked with several pairs of drying trousers every day from my tall 11 year old.

No doubt there will be reviews of decisions and services, but as a punter, I'm happy that they've kept us informed. Maybe the appalling First ScotRail could take a leaf out of their book.

West Lothian Council's School Sign Blunder

Yesterday I drove along a road I drive along every day and I saw something out of place. It would not be unlike me for that to have been the case for weeks and I'd not noticed it. I am not, after all, the most observant person on this planet.

I checked, though, and it seems that it was replaced very recently.

You know that I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to spelling and punctuation, but even the most laid back of people would insist on getting the education stories and the headlines right. Or signposts.

I wonder how the pupils and staff of St John Ogilvie Primary School in Livingston feel about this:

Live in West Lothian? Respond to Council's cuts consultation by 30th June

Ok, so West Lothian Council aren't calling them cuts, they're calling them tough choices, or savings. The growing lexicon of budget reduction will rarely include the C-word, preferring its more comforting sounding options.

The public aren't stupid. We know that the country is in an economic fix that can't be wished away. We know that unless we take action to reduce the deficit, we'll be in big trouble.

Nick Clegg earlier this year compared and contrasted what's happened in Greece with the way Canada dealt with its budget deficit in the 90s, by properly consulting with the people, asking for their ideas on cutting public spending. He said:

At that time, Canada had an annual budget deficit a tenth the size of its economy…
Almost as large as the UK’s is today.
Rather than making cuts behind closed doors, the Liberal Government realised that if people were to understand what needed to be done they had to talk to them.
They held a massive consultation.
About every last line of public spending.
Asking the people who really knew: what to cut and what to protect.
And they managed to eliminate that vast deficit in four years…
Taking the people with them.

Liberal Democrats will follow Canada’s lead.

West Lothian Council seem to be taking the Canadian experience to heart by asking local residents to take part in a consultation exercise, using a document called Tough Choices as its basis, as to how they should reduce spending. They are asking every single household to submit suggestions and responses to the officers' proposals.

I intend to look at this in more detail, but I wanted to make sure that you were all aware of this and had enough time to make your submission by the closing date of 30th June.

There are sections for every department, but my concern is that every single budget is bound to be cut over the next 3 years. Why do I think that? Because the figure for the projected budget is the same as this year's - which has to be a cut by the rate of inflation, currently at 3.5%.

It makes me wonder whether the SNP Government at Holyrood's Council Tax freeze over the past 3 years has been sensible. I'm also very concerned that they've decided to postpone cuts in the Scottish budget until after the elections next year. Some might say that was a cynical move, because I don't believe that they can't find anything to save money on this year.

Tarmac, I have missed you........

It's Day 31 of the Big Freeze here. That's over 4 weeks since the snow came. It's certainly on its way out now. Only a few days ago, the rabbit run had well over a foot of snow on it, now only a couple of inches. We can even see some grass. Our little cul de sac, however, was still regularly scattered with cars in weird positions, their owners having bravely tried to make an escape. I have most sympathy with my friend who bought a sporty wee MX-5 just before the snow came. Sleek and sexy it may be, but more suited to speeding along the roads in the south of France, from Nice to St Tropez and then on to Monaco than for dealing with Winter in West Lothian. Even our little Micra hasn't been anywhere since Bob got stuck on 30th December. The car that he helped to dig out on 2nd January has only just managed to move from where it was left then across the road from our drive.

Our street could not be any lower on the Council's list of priorities and not once did I ever expect them to come and dig us out of our misery. Much to my surprise, I woke this morning to the sound of a digger shovelling the snow away. I have never been so pleased to see tarmac in my whole life so I have to say a big thank you to West Lothian Council. I wanted to go out and give the guy driving it a bottle of beer but couldn't because a) we have no beer and b) the sight of me in my jammies might have traumatised him for life. There's still snow on the path, but I'm hopeful that I might get out somewhere, anywhere different from this street for the first time since 19th December.

Don't get me wrong, I love my home, messy and completely unlike a show house that it is, but I've been struggling a bit with cabin fever particularly in the last couple of weeks.

Look at the after photo!