THE Prime Minister may have surprised the nation with the announcement of a snap general election to be held in six weeks’ time, but there is another extremely important poll taking next week.

On May 4, voters in Clackmannanshire and across Scotland will elect councillors to represent them in their local authorities.

Under the SNP, Scotland has increasingly become one of the most centralised democracies in the world. Powers are being snatched away from our local councils and drawn into the centre.

We have seen our local police forces scrapped, democratic local planning decisions overturned and attempts to grab local taxes for national policies. It is almost as if they distrust local government and they prefer to have more and more decisions taken in Edinburgh by people who have little local knowledge.

The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, however, take completely the opposite view. We believe that decisions should be taken as close to local people as possible. Democratically elected local councillors should be trusted to make decisions in the best interests of their constituents. While the SNP always demand more powers for Holyrood, they are reluctant to devolve them down further. We need to empower our local authorities—not constrain them.

The Conservatives have a strong record on supporting local communities and regions. The UK Government’s City Deal for Stirling - which includes Clackmannanshire - will give the region more powers to help boost economic growth, increase employment and fund local infrastructure projects but we want to go further. We also want to see local growth partnerships introduced across Scotland where civic and business leaders work together to improve the local economic environment.

We also need to be more flexible in terms of how our councils are funded. We fundamentally believe in the principle that taxation raised locally should be spent locally. To that end, we want councils to be allowed to keep all non-domestic rate income raised locally and make more use of their ability to give discretionary discounts.

Moreover, councils should be allowed to keep all funds that have been raised locally by the Land and Building Transaction Tax but - as they can currently do with business rates - they should also be allowed to introduce local relief schemes where appropriate.

Our transport network is also incredibly important. We want councils to be given more powers over bus franchising to allow them to set up systems like those used in Edinburgh or London. In addition, we should not neglect the importance of community transport networks.

We support a new capital fund for community transport and have long argued for the extension of the national concessionary travel scheme to include community transport.

We have a fantastic team of candidates in Clackmannanshire for these elections and I am confident that each and every one of them would be a strong local voice for their communities. By voting Scottish Conservative and Unionist next week, you will ensure that the SNP are held to account and that localism is at the heart of local government.