WE are writing this letter to explain why we voted against an amendment which called for a new service to be considered for the Cowdenbeath area.

At the meeting of Fife Council on Thursday June 27 a motion was proposed and seconded by two Glenrothes councillors.

This motion condemned the scrapping of the out of hours GP service which had previously been run from Glenrothes hospital. It went on to criticise the shortage of GPs and blamed this on poor workforce planning by the Scottish Government over the last twelve years.

The SNP group on the council moved an amendment attempting to admonish the Scottish Government of all blame. They took the usual SNP tack and blamed it all on Westminster.

Their amendment also called for the reinstatement of the out of hours service in Glenrothes and also added a call for the introduction of an out of hours service for the Cowdenbeath area.

We supported the original motion against this amendment as we felt that the inclusion of the call for an out of hours GP service for Cowdenbeath was nothing more than a smoke screen as with the recent cuts right across the board in public spending such an expansion of health services is pie in the sky for the foreseeable future.

If at any point in the future the possibility of such a service for Cowdenbeath were ever to come near being a reality it would have the full support of both of us.

COUNCILLOR GARY GUICHAN

AND COUNCILLOR ALEX CAMPBELL (LABOUR).