Scott Begbie: Cut the salaries of good for nothing councillors before you axe our vital services across Aberdeenshire

So the good people of Aberdeenshire won’t face a shock 20% tax hike says council leader Gillian Owen. Excellent. Then councillors won’t face appalled taxpayers turning up with torches and pitchforks.

Because we are already wondering what on earth they are doing with our money without them demanding a fifth more than we already fork out.

Case in point is the neglect shown to some fairly fundamental services in my hometown of Stonehaven.

Streetlights on a stretch of a well-used residential road (it’s the one I walk to the station to get a train and the Station to get a pint) have been out for weeks. You literally cannot see where you are putting your feet.

Why should I have to use my iPhone torch to see where I’m going on a public street because our council doesn’t have the wit to fix the streetlights or simply can’t be hooped?

The recent snow and ice also threw council sloping-shoulders into sharp relief, with pavements untouched and crucial roads untreated for days.

The state of the north-east’s roads needs addressing

Then we have the state of the roads when they are dry. Every community in the north-east has belters of potholes they are tempted to name as a permanent part of the landscape, like craters on the moon.

That’s a micro level of gripes. Amplify that across the shire and its services and you have ineptitude on a mega scale.

Now the poor lambs in the council are saying brace yourself for “salami-slicing” cuts. What, like axing the school crossing patrollers as happened last year? That’s not cutting a sliver of cured meat, that’s cleaving into the bone of essential services.

And the whole “we won’t put taxes up by 20%” is a smokescreen to cover some sort of hike along with death by a thousand cuts, all while saying “oh, it could have been worse.”

When challenged, it’s never the fault of those running our council there isn’t any money. It’s always a heady mix of being short-changed by another level of government or having “headwinds” like the cost-of-living crisis.

“A big global crisis did it and ran away” isn’t an excuse for poor governance.

If the council needs to make cuts in Aberdeenshire they should look in the mirror

If councillors are looking for where to save money, not just in Aberdeenshire but in every council, can I suggest they look in the mirror.

Go on and ask yourself this: “Are we as councillors working as a team, laser-focused on making sensible choices for the good of the people we serve or are we blinded by petty party politics and dogma, making decisions to score points rather than for the common good?”

And your next question should be: “Does there have to be so many of us?”

The answers are: “Hell no and absolutely not.”

The best way to get the best value for our tax money would be streamlined councils free of party politics.

But the vested interests are too entrenched to even countenance that suggestion. Until that happens it’s us poor chumps who are paying the price.

Scott Begbie is a journalist and editor, as well as PR and comms manager for Aberdeen Inspired.