It was great to speak directly to my constituents in Tarbert recently about many important local and national issues affecting them.

There are justifiable concerns from local businesses about the ongoing problems caused by blocked drains. When works do finally take place to rectify these problems there must be an effort to minimise any disruptions to local businesses.

By far the issue that I am hearing the most about from my constituents in Tarbert is the need for new social housing to be built and the importance of maintaining and improving our existing housing stock. While the four new houses that are planed are welcome many local residents have quite rightly said that much more are needed.

Both externally and internally, housing must be improved including repairing and repainting the hallways that link many housing association flats. There have also been calls to roll out external wall insulation across all of the social housing in Tarbert, and while there has been a start on this, clearly more needs to be done.

As I have said in the past as a social housing tenant myself I know all to well the difficulties in getting housing associations to act on concerns raised by we tenants.

As your Councillor I will continue to press for more and better social housing across the Kintyre and Islands ward.

Cllr Alastair Redman