Interview with Shane Painter, Scottish Conservative candidate in George Street & Harbour, Aberdeen

Interview with Shane Painter, Scottish Conservative candidate in George Street & Harbour, Aberdeen

• Why a Scottish Conservative candidate in George Street & Harbour?

We’re fortunate enough to have elected a Scottish Conservative (councillor) in George Street and Harbour in 2017 and I think the work my predecessor has done is absolutely incredible and it shows the strength of what Conservatives can do in the local area. We’re fortunate enough in Aberdeen to be in administration and having a councillor in that administration that’s been incredibly beneficial. We’ve got currently a 150 million pounds master plan which will regenerate our beach area and the city centre to make them a place that’s fit for the 21st century and will bring it into the modern world. Across Britain the high streets are struggling and we’ve got tons of problems the pandemic brought us, being in the administration has given us that voice to fix what we want to. I think there’s so much that local councillors can do and we recognise that George Street and Harbour is not by any means a typical Conservative area. It’s a city centre ward, it’s not particularly an affluent area in comparison to any other areas of the city, so we don’t take any votes for granted and I recognise there’s a lot of work to do to get people out to vote; but having a voice in the administration for the local area is just beneficial and being in the administration makes our voice louder and stronger. 

• What are the main issues you want to prioritise in this campaign?

We recently had a vote in the council here to pedestrianise the main high street, and speaking with members of the public, speaking with business leaders; we recognised this is the way to go forward. We have to do something new to rejuvenate our high streets to bring people back and we believe that after speaking with so many different stakeholders, the pedestrianisation is the right way to do it. We have to absolutely get it right so the pedestrianisation doesn’t exclude people and we have to listen to perfectly legitimate concerns of those who might not be able to, and we have to make sure that they can still access like anyone else. Pedestrianisation is building back from the pandemic and doing something new, that’s going to make a critical part (of the campaign) but beyond that George Street and Harbour is not one of the most affluent areas of the city. 

The ward has lower income brackets compared to some other areas. The poverty rate is higher and we’ve got higher levels of anti-social behaviour, so tackling that and how we go about it in a way that will encompass multiple different organisations and that the council can’t do on its own, that is going to play a critical role as well, fighting for a cleaner city centre that is attractive to people. 

And of course we had the pandemic, and we’ve got to focus on recovery from that and how we can support schools, local communities, our NHS, etc.

• Why are the Scottish Conservatives the best alternative to the SNP and Labour?

I’ll start with Labour first. The coalition that has been on Aberdeen City Council since 2017 has been a Conservative-Labour one, with some independents. On paper, that doesn’t sound like it should work, it sounds like the parties can’t work together, but what we’ve done and what’s happened is that we’ve worked with Labour and we’ve put aside our differences, we’ve used those differences to work together for the benefit of the city and the area as a whole. The administration’s budget for the next year is a proof of how when the left and the right come together and work together they can produce something quite positive. In the last budget, we’ve got 1 million pound fuel poverty fund to help those who had been left behind by the Scottish Government. We’ve managed to protect our schools and our young people from SNP cuts, because the SNP have cut budgets across Scotland for no obvious reason. We’ve worked well with Labour and I’m sure it’s something that we’ll consider doing in the future depending on how the election goes. 

The SNP is still focused on a divisive second referendum, and there are more important things, everyone recognises that. People’s priorities are not the same as they were in 2014. They want an administration that is focused on them and their concerns, and at the moment that’s just not independence. When it comes to the SNP, outside of their rhetoric around independence, they’ve got no ideas. They unfortunately lost the bill on pedestrianisation by 1 and that was led by the Liberal Democrats and them. They want to hold Aberdeen back, they want to hold it in the past. We’re not living in 30-40 years ago when this was a prosperous area, things have changed, shopping habits have changed and we have to change with it; otherwise we’ll just have managed decline. The SNP have no ideas, it’s just holding us back, it’s not moving anywhere and it’s just going to be the detriment to us all if the SNP gets into administration here.