Since being elected to my position as Councillor I have had the privilege of being able to travel to every corner of my council ward on a regular basis.

While catching up with constituents and listening to their concerns one matter above all others comes up time and time again and that is our infrastructure. There is no doubt in my mind that our hard working roads men have made significant progress in improving our network across the Kintyre and Islands ward and the rest of Argyll and Bute. That said, there is only so much that can be done by our council with continuing budget restrictions placed on us by relentless cuts to our council's block grant from the Scottish Government.

It is immensely important that a special case is made for areas of rural Scotland with large industrial growth. With our distilleries going from strength to strength the pressure on our roads network will only increase.

In the past the Scottish Government has given local authorities more funding to help cope with the strain put on our roads by logging through the Scottish Timber Transport Fund. So I no reason why the same special consideration can't be given to local authorities with large output from distilleries.

This special consideration makes even more sense considering the vast amount of tax revenue that leaves islands like Islay and Jura every single day.

I would implore central government to invest more in our infrastructure including our crumbling trunk road network in order to help bridge the rural urban divide and bring some fairness back to the tax revenue bread baskets of Islay and Jura.

Cllr Alastair Redman