Carrots and Sticks

I went to visit Strikers Indoor Football in Aberdeen last night with Dame Anne Begg. This a great community initiative which provides teenagers across Aberdeen with something to do in the evenings and gets them off the streets. It's free of charge, and first group lay on buses to pick the footballers up. In my opinion, tackling anti-social behaviour is a great example of the carrots we need, along with the sticks of ASBOs and dispersal zones.

Unfortunately, there are no teams from Kincorth or Torry this year. This is really frustrating, considering these suburbs suffer the most from late night disturbances. The police have been doing their best to push the scheme through their early intervention officers, but parental consent is still needed for the footballers to take part. I would really encourage parents to get their children to sign up to the scheme.

Since the closure of the Tullos swimming pool, Striker's football is one of the few leisure facilities left available to teenagers. I attended a Torry Community Council meeting at the Academy on Thursday where local residents are trying to fund raise to get the pool reopened. It's a sad state we've reached in Aberdeen where communities are having to bail out the Lib Dem / SNP city council's incompetence; in this case their botched procurement process. The council should make right their mistakes and reopen the pool for the benefit of the Torry community.