CENTRAL Region's two Independent councillors -- who said last month
they would work from the back of a van to avoid having to share an
office with the council's Tories -- are to move uninvited into the plush
office of the council's chief executive.
Until August, the Conservatives and Independents had rooms of their
own in the council's main offices in Stirling, but were given notice to
quit under a Labour-inspired accommodation reshuffle.
An offer of a shared room was rejected by the Independents,
Councillors Pat McCafferty and Billy Buchanan, and Councillor Buchanan
said yesterday that, since the end of the summer recess, they had been
shifted from pillar to post.
Councillor Buchanan warned there would be a unilateral decantation of
Independents into the office of top official Douglas Sinclair first
thing this morning.
''We'll be chapping on his door at half-past nine,'' he said.
Since abandoning their plans to operate from the back of Councillor
Buchanan's small Honda van, with the boot of Councillor McCafferty's car
as a filing cabinet, the Independents say they have had to flit from
room to room on a daily basis, and store their papers in a caretaker's
cubicle.
A new offer from the administration -- a filing cabinet and access to
offices ''at most times'', and if pre-booked, in a building several
hundred yards across an open car park from the rest of the members'
services -- was rejected by the Independents yesterday.
Councillor Buchanan, in a memo to Mr Sinclair, warned: ''I will from
Wednesday 21st be taking over your office to conduct my constituents'
business. There is no way I am going to wander round View-forth like
nobody's child.
''You are infringing my democratic right to represent the people who
elected me, and this I will not stand for.''
Councillor Buchanan said: ''I'm just going to plonk myself down and
get to work. There's plenty of room -- it is palatial enough to get the
captain and crew of the QE2 in there.''
Agreeing, Councillor McCafferty said he did not expect Mr Sinclair to
resist the ''invasion''.
Councillor Buchanan said the root of the problem was that too much
space had been allocated to the ruling Labour group.
''It's disgraceful to treat other councillors like this, especially a
man like Councillor McCafferty, with 30 years' experience. It's
degrading,'' he said.
Mr Sinclair was unavailable for comment.
* A recent visitor to Mr Sinclair's office said: ''The only way to
describe it is sumptuous, and -- unless he's ripped it up -- it's
knee-deep in Wilton-type carpet.''
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