East Ayrshire, Scotland News

SCOTTISH Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon was the special guest last week at the newly-opened Rosebank resource centre in London Road, Kilmarnock.

STEWARTON is to become a clubber's paradise with a second nightspot set to be created in the town.

OUTGOING MP Des Browne has launched a pre-election attack on the SNP. Highlighting the latest unemployment figures, the Labour MP accused the Nationalists of neglecting the area.

THE newly-formed East Ayrshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership welcomed Minister for Community Safety Fergus Ewing to the Burns Monument Centre in Kilmarnock last week.

WHO remembers when bus travel meant whiling away the hours with a good book, having a snooze, or even simply staring into space? Well, those days on the buses have gone.

EAST Ayrshire Council's cabinet last week warned that they could offer no guarantees to make up a shortfall in Citizens Advice Bureau funding.

OVER 80 per cent of East Ayrshire S4 pupils who took part in a Prince's Trust scheme benefited from the experience, according to independent research.

EAST Ayrshire Council's twice-a-year glossy magazine, Headlines, could be another casualty of the current drive to cut costs at London Road.

A MILLIONAIRE Scots Falklands veteran is to recreate the Paras' famous 'tab' to Port Stanley to raise funds for an armed forces charity that East Ayrshire Provost Stephanie Young is currently backing through a series of initiatives.

A COUNCIL plan to axe nursery head teachers has parents up in arms. Parents at both Onthank and Darvel Nurseries say their children's early education would suffer if the proposal - part of East Ayrshire Council's wider plan to save 7 million - goes ahead.

AN inspirational project using paperclips to commemorate Holocaust victims has captured the imagination of school pupils across the area.

Pictured: Ayrshire Cancer Support chief executive James Beck receives a cheque for A 850 from Clydesdale Bank Ayrshire FSC partner Linda Paterson and managing partner Willie Mackie .

THE ongoing who's to blame/who's milking the situation surrounding the area's big freeze slithered on this week with SNP MSP Willie Coffey having a go at his Labour counterpart Cathy Jamieson.

FOUR people died on North Ayrshire's roads in 2009, one less than the previous year new police figures show.

A teenager who repeatedly stabbed a 62-year-old man who was walking his dog has been convicted of murder.

UP East Ayrshire Council is planning to axe services in a bid to save 7 million.

SINCE the weather took a turn for the worst, the Kilmarnock Standard has been inundated with pictures of snowy and wintry scenes across East Ayrshire.

We meet a few of the amazing individuals nominated for Scotswoman of Year... We'll be announcing the names of the finalists later this week .... but here SHEILA HAMILTON tells the stories of just a few of the remarkable women who have been nominated for the award Jane Smith FOR MANY years now, Jane Smith has put her all into making a difference to ...

A WOMAN stranded at home by snow claims East Ayrshire Council did nothing to help release her so she could visit her dying father.

SCOTLAND Office Minister Ann McKechin visited Kilmarnock this week. Her whistlestop tour included trips to East Ayrshire Carers Centre and East Ayrshire Credit Union, as well as East Ayrshire Womens Aid.