by Communications TEAM | Mar 10, 2025 | Announcement, announcement, announcementspage, News
We have received this notification of M9 closures in the week of March 10 to 14th:
BEAR Scotland, acting on behalf of Transport Scotland, is planning to carry out Bridge Joint Replacements at the Structure M9 10-11 65 Knockhill which carries the M9. The joint replacements will require phased road and lane closures in each direction to facilitate the works.
The works have been programmed to start on Monday the 10th of March for a duration of 5 nights between the hours of 20:30 and 06:00 each night.
The M9 Northbound will be closed between junctions 9 and 11 on 10th and 11th of March. The M9 Southbound will be closed between junctions 11 and 9 from the 12th to 14th of March.
The southbound M9 between junctions 10 and 9 will also be reduced to one lane on the 11th March, to allow works to be undertaken on the central reserve.
To ensure the safety of the workforce and members of the travelling public it is necessary to implement road and lane closures during the works.
The diversion route for both north and south bound traffic on the M9 will be signposted between Junctions 9 and 11, via the A91 and A9. This diversion will add approximately 17 minutes and 8.5 miles onto affected journeys.
A location plan showing this diversion route is within the attached document from BEAR: M9 Junctions 9 – 11 – Overnight Bridge joint Replacements
by Communications TEAM | Mar 5, 2025 | announcement, announcementspage, News
Meet Wednesday 12 march, Stirling University Pathfoot Building (Crush Hall) at 2pm. Dress for the weather!
This event centres on the planting of 8 dwarf fruit trees in a Pathfoot courtyard. Scotland’s Makar, Pàdraig MacAoidh [Peter Mackay], will join us to read a poem he has composed for the event. We will show the ‘fruits’ of a recently held collage workshop and we will also decide on the next steps for naming the orchard in ways that respect the past and present of the place where we are putting down these roots.
All welcome,
For more details, contact lecturers in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities: aedin.loingsigh@stir.ac.uk and Jacqueline.collins@stir.ac.uk
by Communications TEAM | Feb 27, 2025 | announcement, announcementspage, Current Issues, News, webpage
Stirling Council have issued this press release on the approval of the council’s 2025-26 budget today.
Links to the budget papers and the recording of the meeting are included in the story.
Stirling Council approves 2025-26 budget
Stirling Council has approved a budget for 2025-26 that addresses a significant budget shortfall, protects key services and delivers major investment towards achieving council priorities.
At a meeting of Council today (27 Feb), councillors agreed the revenue and capital budget for the next financial year, informed by the feedback from the council’s Big Conversation with residents and communities.
The budget gap will be bridged by an 8.8% increase in council tax and a range of savings totalling £7.67 million – policy (£125,000), efficiencies (£5.9 million) and non-recurring (£1.6 million).
This additional revenue will also support the council’s revenue budget which funds the running of day-to-day frontline services such as schools and nurseries, libraries, community centres, waste collections, maintaining the road network, and social work and social care services to protect and support vulnerable people.
A £471,000 investment fund will be created from a portion of the non-recurring savings to support the delivery of the council priorities – decisions on how this will be spent will be taken by the finance, economy and corporate support committee.
Among the savings proposals rejected were the removal of school music tuition and school counselling; the removal of kerbside glass collections and garden waste concessions; a 25% reduction in library services; and a 25% reduction to Stirling’s Citizen’s Advice Bureau.
More than 4,300 people of all ages had their say on the detailed savings proposals and other areas of the budget such as changes to council tax in two surveys in this year’s Big Conversation.
Over £81 million has been allocated for next year’s capital budget – the funding of long-term projects such as new roads, schools and buildings.
A total of £5 million of this will be spent on road infrastructure improvements, with substantial investments in major projects across a wide range of service areas including new schools in Callander and South Stirling Gateway, the flood alleviation scheme in Bridge of Allan and new digital technology for schools.
Specific projects in the programme include the restoration of the Christie Clock over the next two financial years, £800,000 for two new pieces of road machinery and borrowing of £2.17 million to complete the redevelopment of The Peak at Stirling Sports Village.
Stirling Council Leader, Cllr Gerry McGarvey said: “I would like thank everyone who took part in the Big Conversation surveys and for providing such constructive and considered feedback. Be in no doubt – your views have shaped the decisions we have made today.
“Increasing council tax and making further savings, principally efficiencies, has enabled us to set a balanced budget that protects vital frontline services and gives us scope to invest in projects that will drive economic growth and secure a better future for all the people of Stirling.
“This commitment to deliver lasting benefits for our communities is also evident in our wide-ranging capital programme with significant investments in new infrastructure, facilities and equipment that will also support the transformation of our services.
“I would like to express my gratitude to everyone involved in setting this year’s budget and to acknowledge our hard-working and dedicated staff who deliver these services we rely on day-in, day-out, even during extreme weather events such as the recent Storm Eowyn.”
Like many Scottish local authorities, the council faces an unprecedented financial challenge with the budget report listing the main pressures. These include the use of one-off reserves in previous years, pay inflation, rising costs, increasing demand for services and grant allocations.
Almost 79% of the council’s budget comes from a Scottish Government grant and share of the Government’s non-domestic rates or business rates, with the rest raised from council tax.
The report on the council’s budget says that once ring-fenced grants and new funding which come with spending commitments were removed, the council’s core grant allocation from the Scottish Government for 2025-26 only increased by £4.2 million (1.8%) from last year.
The council’s recently approved medium term financial strategy has forecast that its cumulative budget gap will rise to £50.7 million by 2029-30.
Cllr McGarvey continued: “The serious financial pressures on the council and local government as a whole will result in more tough choices in the years ahead. To meet these challenges, we must continue our meaningful conversation with our residents, communities and staff on how we redesign our services and do things better and more efficiently.
“The budget also shows we have lots to look forward to over the coming 12 months with work progressing on transformative projects such as Forthside while the exciting finale celebrations of Stirling’s 900th birthday will take place at the end of March.
“Innovation, creativity and resilience have been associated with Stirling’s communities over the past 900 years and these same strengths will ensure we can overcome challenges and embrace the future with confidence and optimism.”
The budget reports, including the revenue budget and proposed capital programme, as well as the political motions, can be downloaded here.
You can watch a recording of the budget-setting meeting and to find links to the agenda papers on the council’s online broadcasting platform.
More information
For more information, please visit stirling.gov.uk/bigconversation.
by Communications TEAM | Feb 20, 2025 | announcement, announcementspage, Current Issues, News
SSRS have had a reported sighting of a sick squirrel in Bridge of Allan, and have initiated a plan to endeavour to find out more information to determine what the illness was, and hopefully to eliminate squirrelpox.
Please help us with this by following the requests as detailed on this poster.
Primarily
Take in ALL wildlife feeders for 3 weeks.
Disinfect all feeders before restarting their use – Ideally use an antiviral such as Virkon S.
If you see a sick squirrel report it on the SSRS website and try and get a picture.
If you find a dead red squirrel post it using the proper procedure to the Royal Dick in Edinburgh where we can conduct a proper post mortem.
Call SSPCA if you spot a sick squirrel.
All the details are on this poster “Sick Red Squirrels Alert”
by Communications TEAM | Feb 20, 2025 | announcement, announcementspage, News, webpage
Stirling Council is developing an updated set of equality outcomes for 2025-29. An equality outcome should further one or more of the following needs:
- eliminate discrimination
- advance equality of opportunity
- foster good relations.
These needs form the general equality duty for public authorities.
In other words, equality outcomes are intended to achieve improvements in people’s life chances.
We want to involve a range of people in developing the equality outcomes for 2025-29 – particularly those who share a relevant protected characteristic and their representatives.
There are nine protected characteristics:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender Reassignment
- Marriage and Civil Partnership
- Pregnancy and Maternity
- Race
- Religion or Belief
- Sex
- Sexual Orientation
This survey enables you to contribute to the development of the 2025-29 equality outcomes.
We will take your responses, experiences and stories – and collate them with others’ responses to understand common themes. We will then turn these themes into Equality Outcomes for Stirling, and aim to improve people’s life chances over the next four years.
This survey should take no more than 15 minutes to complete, and is open until 10th March 2025 at this website: Equalities Survey
by Communications TEAM | Jan 31, 2025 | announcement, announcementspage, News, webpage
The Chair of the Bridge of Allan Community Council has sent the following letter to Stirling Council:
OFFICIAL
Date: 31 January 2025
Dear Stirling Council,
2025/26 Stirling Council Budget: consultation and engagement process
In addition to our individual residents’ responses to the current budget engagement exercise, Bridge of Allan Community Council is writing on behalf of our community to express our concerns regarding both the process and the options being presented.
We appreciate that generating savings options for consideration is a challenge, however we feel that the information provided has been insufficient to allow residents to fully consider options and provide informed feedback to support Elected Members to decide on the budget for 2025/26.
On your engagement platform you state that £2.6m of savings are being consulted on with residents, and that a range of other savings, totalling more than £8m, have been identified which will not have a direct impact on the services resident’s use. No detail is provided on the £8m plus of savings identified, but we are struggling to understand how any savings made by Council will not have a direct impact on the services provided to residents. Whether the savings are being generated from back-office functions, from restructures or from another route they will ultimately impact on the quality and efficiency of the services provided by Stirling Council to its residents. We ask you to share publicly all information on the detail of these savings and an assessment of the impact, both positive and negative from these.
The savings presented for engagement are not supported with information on the potential impact should the saving be made, with detail instead describing the service as it is. There is no detail of the impact assessments you have undertaken in relation to equalities, children’s rights, environment, or the Fairer Scotland Duty. Without this level of detail, the engagement exercise you have undertaken feels tokenistic. Unless you are willing to support residents to give an informed view it is hard to see what value you place on this exercise. While we feel that asking respondents general questions about possible disproportionate impact of savings on people with one or more protected characteristic is positive it is not enough. It does not give any opportunity to consider how factors such as poverty may exacerbate impact on some households, or how the cumulative impact of different savings may have a disproportionate impact on specific individuals, households or families.
Many of the options presented seem to relate to services aimed at supporting those most in need, such as services specifically aimed at supporting children and young people to engage in education, community and culture; supporting families; providing access to libraries and community facilities; homelessness and housing support; business development; and volunteering support. These are often the areas targeted on an annual basis for savings, which provides uncertainty for both those who use the services and the staff who provide them. It also suggests they are valued less than services not being presented for consideration.
While we recognise that savings must be made, and that the budget requires to be balanced, we do not feel that the options presented represent areas of true efficiency within the organisation. Many of the options proposed will have a significant detrimental impact on members of our community who require most support and will have a cumulative long-term impact on outcomes for the communities who make up the Stirling Council area.
As a representative body for our area with a statutory basis, we have a role in supporting Council to engage with residents. We have shared information on the engagement exercise with residents and urged them to have their say. However the lack of detail on the options themselves, and the likely impact on residents is an area of significant concern for the Community Council and we would welcome a discussion on how this approach can be improved.
Regards
Amanda Coulthard
Chair, Bridge of Allan Community Council
Bridge of Allan Community Council
OFFICIAL
