The people of the North Coast area must be wondering why some of them voted for Kenny Gibson to be our MSP. First, he and his party oppose nuclear energy which just happens to be the biggest employer in the area. Quite how Mr Gibson can claim to represent the area when he opposes its biggest source of quality jobs is a mystery that he might like to address.

Now we find that the SNP's school-building programme also ignores the North Coast. Kenny Gibson stood on an election manifesto which promised to match "brick-for-brick" the previous Labour-led administration's school building programme. But he clearly does not apply this promise to his own constituents. Between 2003 and 2007, the previous Labour-led Scottish Executive directly funded and built three new Primary and three new Secondary schools in North Ayrshire.

The next logical phase was to build new Secondary Schools at Garnock, Ardrossan and Largs. Not now. The SNP has decreed that North Ayrshire is to get only one new Secondary school, and that is to be the replacement for Garnock Academy. Not only is the SNP not matching the previous programme "brick-for-brick", or anything like it, the SNP is expecting the Council to pick up one-third of the bill for the single school it is kindly allowing us to build.

While no-one can grudge the people of the Garnock Valley the prospect of a new Secondary School for their children, it is a pity Mr Gibson and the SNP could not find the energy and the will to fulfil his promise and build a new Secondary school in Largs at the same time. Largs Academy is a good school, but the building is approaching the end of its useful life, and the need to replace it will soon become urgent: an urgency which neither Mr Gibson nor the SNP appears to share.

I challenge Kenny Gibson to go back to Holyrood and fight for his constituents. He should get us the money that he and his party promised to build our new schools, and he should at least make the effort to keep the pledge he made at the 2007 election.

Almost three years into the SNP administration and the one accusation they cannot avoid is a complete lack of ambition for education in Scotland and, in Kenny Gibson's case, a complete lack of ambition for the parents and pupils of Largs and the North Coast.

Alex Gallagher Councillor, Ward 8, NAC