Friday November 28th 2025
West Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
Changes to West Lothian’s community centres have been condemned as “a total failure” based on “anti-democratic decisions” taken by the council, it has been claimed.
In a war of words that followed almost two years of increasingly politicised and bitter debate and dispute the Joint Forum of Community Councils said it was appalled at what had played out.
West Lothian Council rejected these claims, saying that where other councils had closed community venues to save money, all in West Lothian would stay open.
In May last year the council asked all volunteer management committees to consider savings options for the future.
In a bid to save £1m the council offered centre management committees the option to buy their buildings outright through Community Asset Transfer, or sign leasing options which gave them maintenance costs responsibility.
The management committees are mostly volunteers. Faced with hefty running and maintenance costs which, till now, have been shouldered by the council, few were in a position to take on the financial responsibility of ownership.
Only two have taken that option and only four more have said they would consider it.
The rest of the 33 centres will be run directly by the council beyond next April. Some, such as Bathgate’s Community Centre Management Committee which manages the ground floor space in the town’s Partnership building, voted to dissolve next March.
An open letter to the council from the Forum claimed: “As we warned early in the process, initiating a consultation, with the intended answers already pre-determined, was a colossal mistake.”
The letter outlined that the council will now have to manage almost every community centre and will lose the volunteers and community groups who have supported centres in the past.
Ultimately the council’s choice means it will lose income and face new and greater financial risks, the Forum claimed.
It added: “Our constructive suggestion – to pause and start afresh with an open, all-parties discussion to seek a truly collegiate solution, was entirely disregarded.
“The Council’s ultimate ‘solution’, the introduction of a Council Management Option, is the exact opposite of community empowerment.”
The Forum concluded: “We are appalled that this issue, which impacts every single community, was decided at the Executive level through the use of anti-democratic standing orders, which prevented our elected councillors from exercising their right to a full debate and vote.
“The handling of this review and its subsequent adoption by the Executive will unfortunately serve as a model of how not to conduct a community review and how not to address a serious matter affecting local communities and it demonstrates a profound disconnect from the will of the community.
“Please be clear that our position is one of opposition to this outcome.”
In a robust and detailed response to the Forum, the council reiterated its initial assertion: “The current model for the delivery of community centres was not sustainable.”
It told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “We looked, in consultation with community centre management committees, to find a long term and sustainable way of working and ensure that the income generated in a community centre funds the running costs of the centre itself.”
The council stressed: “The main objective has always been to ensure that community centres remain available for communities and run in a sustainable way. We believe it is extremely positive that community centres will remain open across our towns and villages.
“At a time when local facilities are closing across Scotland, we look forward to working with community groups to deliver successful and sustainable community centres in West Lothian in future.
“A way forward has been agreed and community centres will remain open in West Lothian.”
In its response to the Forum the council also questioned its accusations of anti-democratic actions.
“We strongly refute some of the criticism and claims made by the Joint Forum, particularly that the consultation process was initiated ‘with predetermined outcomes’.
“It was clear from our initial communication and communications thereafter that, whilst options were identified and proposed, the council would consider any alternative and viable views that were put forward by Management Committees.
“The Council’s Governance arrangements around decision making have been in place and operated effectively for 15 years. At no point has the Joint Forum of Community Councils ever raised an issue with that governance or the decision making process.”
Tweet Share on Facebook
