LINDA Holt and James Glen have made various allegations, claims and criticisms over the past 18 months under the banner of ‘community activists’.

I just want recap what James and Linda are against and what they have not campaigned against, and challenge their claim to be ‘community activists’.

Between them Linda and James have campaigned against the Lochgelly Town House development, new housing, improvements to the public park, the campaign for a new health centre, the Fife Cycle Circuit, new visitor centre and sports pavilion at Lochore Meadows, the family nurture centre at the Sunflower Nursery and finally the proposed new regional climbing centre, Rockgelly.

This is millions of pounds of investment James and Linda have one way or another campaigned against.

Now let’s look at the local issues James and Linda have remained silent on. They have said nothing about the millions of pounds being cut from local council services. They have said not word about cuts to local bus services. The failure for the Scottish Government to provide mental health services to our community.

To James’s credit he did start a campaign calling for more local doctors, which I did support. But he seems to have parked the campaign for some reason.

We now know that Linda Holt is to stand for the Tories in the local government elections (although not in the Cowdenbeath Area). The fact is James and Linda are not ‘community activists’ with the best interest of the community at heart, but ‘political activist’s’ unwilling to share with the community their support for the policies of austerity and tax cuts for the wealthy, which are having such a negative impact on our community.

So as a senior councillor who over the last five years has helped deliver in the Cowdenbeath area; £27.2m investment in new affordable homes, a new care home and care village (£10m+), a £750k new family nurture centre, £1.8m investment in Lochore Meadows, new regional sports facilities for cycling (£2m+) and mountain climbing (£2m+), new sports facilities for local clubs, I will not take lectures from James Glen or Linda Holt on what’s best for the community.

All of the things achieved over the last 5 years have been despite of James Glen and Linda Holt and not because of them. With the remainder of my time as a councillor I don’t plan to reply to James and Linda in the future, I’ll instead focus on what I have been doing and that’s working to improve our communities.

COUNCILLOR MARK HOOD.