THE former Leader of North Ayrshire Council will not be seeking re-election in May, the Herald can exclusively reveal today. 

The SNP’s Councillor, Willie Gibson, has made the decision to retire after almost 10 years representing the people of Saltcoats and Stevenston at Cunninghame House. 

And the former Auchenharvie Academy teacher spoke candidly about his time as an elected member, the pressures of being Leader, the changes that have been made over the past decade and what life after politics holds. 

Cllr Gibson, one of the SNP’s most senior Scottish councillors was also the party’s leader of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and has served on a number of boards locally as he looked to ensure that North Ayrshire got the best deal.

A long and hard decision was taken by Cllr Gibson and he said: “It wasn’t a whim, it’s been over a period of time that I have considered what I want to do in the future. 

“Do I want to stay on and try and be leader again? 

“Do I want to stay on and just be an ordinary councillor and have less responsibility but still work as a councillor?

“ I am still interested in local politics, more so than national politics, although I want Independence, which is the reason I joined the SNP, my priority has always been local government and local policies and I think that causes conflict all over Scotland. 

“There’s this not being able to disconnect the two. 

“The priority for me, I mean I was a teacher, is to give something to people.

“I didn’t even go to the election count the first time. I found out I had been elected when I was standing at the corridor at Auchenharvie when I phoned Allan Merry and he was at the count and I asked him how things were going and he said ‘You don’t need to worry, you’re elected’.

“What I realised when I became Leader was that you had to focus on the bigger picture. If you look at the size of North Ayrshire basically what happens in Irvine affects everywhere and some people get very parochial and very uptight about it.” 

He moved from Leader of the Council to Leader of the Opposition after the SNP lost a by-election last year and said it ‘didn’t help’ when considering his position as councillor. 

Candidly, Cllr Gibson said: “Being in opposition has been a nightmare for me. 

“It’s not the way I would have wanted to move and I think that is pretty obvious. I was on holiday at the time and my thoughts were to wait and see, give it time and wait until the next election and have time to speak to people. 

“My original thoughts were ‘Why would you do something quickly?’ 

“And that was the proposal I suggested and I wouldn’t have wanted to give up. We had so many good things happening, why would I want to give it up?

“I’m not suggesting anyone did want to give it up but I wanted to have the time to negotiate and see how things would go but the group took a different route and I had to make a decision at that point ‘Do I stick with it? Do I stick with the party?’ and that’s the decision I took.

“It didn’t help. 

“I would say to go from Leader of the Council and working basically seven days a week and working with senior officers and working at COSLA with government ministers at that level to suddenly being in opposition and not only that, to be so close to the next election and watch all the fruits of our labour being claimed by a party who didn’t set any of it, I found it very difficult and it certainly didn’t help.

“ There’s no point in trying to say I was delighted to sit there and watch someone else claim responsibility. 

“I think we were doing a very good job but I think this area is very negative. 

“Something I think good happens and it goes on Facebook and the majority of comments are negative about the councillors having their nose in the trough. 

“There’s nobody with their nose in the trough, I can assure you. Councillors don’t get paid very much. Any councillor that does their job properly works very hard and for not a lot of payment.”

Interestingly, the representative of Saltcoats and Stevenston doesn’t think the SNP will get a majority in North Ayrshire in May but believes they will get back into power. 

He said: “I think the trend is that the Labour Party is going downwards.
“ Despite the fact that I have the same social policies, they are all over the place.

“ They don’t know where they are going and they now have a leader who is not supported by the whole party either so it is a real problem for them. 

“I think the SNP will gain seats all over Scotland and will probably gain Glasgow but I don’t know that they will have a majority in North Ayrshire.

“I would predict they will lead North Ayrshire but to get a majority in the local government system is very difficult

“ But they are putting up two candidates in every ward which, if things go well, will give them the potential to have a majority."