As Musselburgh racecourse sinks deeper into crisis its staff are desperately seeking answers.
John Prideaux, a member of the Lothian Racing Syndicate (LRS), addressed them yesterday regarding the course losing its licence from the British Horseracing Authority (BHA).
He did so because Councillor Willie Innes, the chairman of the Musselburgh Joint Racing Committee (MJRC), has yet to meet with the staff who have a number of previous grievances.
Barry Fletcher, the GMB representative, is deeply concerned with his members’ future employment and said: “I’ve arranged a meeting with Cllr Innes for Thursday at 11 o’clock. GMB and the employees at Musselburgh racecourse are now very concerned about where this leaves Musselburgh.
People rely on the racecourse for their income. If Cllr Innes is putting this in jeopardy then it’s scandalous.”
Fletcher also questioned the motives of those behind the decision to not accept the BHA’s offer of a six-month licence extension in return for accepting an independent review of the governance of the racecourse and added: “I’m wondering if Cllr Innes has taken this action on his own?
The question that’s got to be asked of Cllr Innes is why is he not taking this to the MJRC?”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here