North West Dumfries, Scottish Labour Party Councillor Since 2012, Ronnie Nicholson has quit today Tuesday, February the 26th 2019, after not being able to support proposed cuts in the local council budget. Mr Nicholson stood down as the Labour Leader for Dumfries and Galloway back in May 2017.
Commenting on his decision to resign from the Labour Group of Dumfries and Galloway Council, North West Dumfries Councillor Ronnie Nicholson said, “This was an incredibly difficult decision for me to make but in all conscience I could not support a proposed SNP Labour budget which made such draconian cuts in teachers. Given the reduction in funding from the Scottish Government, the council has an impossible task to make over £15m of savings without impacting negatively on services.
But the decision to axe at least 40 teaching posts is a cut too far and one that is avoidable. The budget proposes over £500,000 of spending on new proposals such as a Community Initiative Fund and the council also propose to increase the reserves held.
I wanted to suggest that we used this money to retain teaching posts instead but I was prevented from even making this suggestion at the last Labour Group meeting before the budget.
After decades as a Labour Party member, I simply cannot be involved in a decision that will damage ours kids education locally, therefore regrettably I had no choice but to resign from the Labour Group”.
