West of Scotland Chamber Group |
28/02/02 |
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The West of Scotland Chamber Group meeting was held on 28th February in Greenock. Being the only “island” chamber in the group, getting to their meetings, which are held four times a year, is something of a challenge. It’s almost impossible to do it in the day and so it’s best achieved on the way to or from another business engagement. WOSCG has member chambers from Dumfries and Galloway in the south to Fort William to the north although its centre of gravity is naturally at the western end of the central belt and the Glasgow chamber is of course a prominent member. The Group’s purpose is to exchange views on problems and opportunities that chambers have and to use our combined influence to promote our members’ interests. Scottish Chambers of Commerce attend the meetings and provide much coordinated business information and a direct and effective route to the Scottish Executive. The prospects for business generally and tourism in particular were reviewed. The consensus was that bookings from the USA were substantially down but had been replaced by those from UK and Europe giving prospects of a good season. Transport issues are often a major concern. The problems resulting from the failure to complete the M74, M8, A80 and M77 were discussed as was the Glasgow Airport Rail Link and current rail issues. The very patchy response to the Local Economic Forum initiative and the Scottish Executive’s reaction were debated. We were able to report the establishment of the Mull & Iona Ferry Committee to coordinate discussions with CalMac and our continued representation of the UK on the European Islands Chamber Network. We’re also on the Scottish Islands network and are doing our best to discover why the Argyll and Bute statistics lead them to believe that Mull will lose one third of its population within twenty years! None of these matters is unimportant and WOSCG gives us an effective voice and support for our causes when we need to influence people. |
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