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Salmond planned Independence town - Alba candidate

Getty Images Alex Salmond smiles at the camera. He has grey hair and wears a blue and white shirt and a grey blazer with an Alba pin. He appears to be standing in front of greenery.Getty Images
Alex Salmond led Scotland to an independence referendum in 2014

A candidate for the Alba Party's deputy leadership has said he and Alex Salmond planned a new Scottish town called Independence.

Chris McEleny said he and the former first minister shared a "vision for a new Scottish town" to accommodate people working in the energy sector.

McEleny is Alba's general secretary, though he was suspended earlier this month over claims of "gross misconduct".

Alba is currently choosing a new leader after Salmond died of a heart attack at a conference in North Macedonia last October at the age of 69.

Salmond led the country between 2007 and 2014 and his party's unprecedented majority in 2011 paved the way for the independence referendum three years later.

After quitting as first minister, he had a spectacular fallout with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and set up the alternative independence supporting Alba Party in 2021.

PA Media Chris McEleny, a fair haired man wearing a blue suit shirt and tie, photographed in the Scottish Parliament. He is visible from the chest up. PA Media
McEleny was suspended as general secretary at the start of February

Alba's sole MSP Ash Regan and former SNP MP Kenny MacAskill are vying for the leadership position ahead of a conference in March.

Infighting has dominated the party since Salmond's death and McEleny previously claimed he had chosen step down as general secretary to ensure the new leader was "free to run the party differently".

However, it was later confirmed that he was suspended from the role over allegations of gross misconduct.

The Scotsman reported that McEleny was accused of "disobeying direct orders from leadership and blocking office bearers from carrying out their duties".

He is also alleged to have misrepresented the party's views on asylum seekers and Donald Trump in media statements.

The former SNP councillor was a close friend of Salmond and has emphasised this link in his election campaign.

He said: "Alex Salmond and I had a vision for a new Scottish town and we could think of no better name than Independence."

McEleny said Scotland had an "abundance of renewable energy potential" but the UK government sent this south of the border "with no benefit to Scotland".

He added: "What we should be doing is using that energy to attract the industries of today and tomorrow to Scotland by using the incentive of cheaper energy anywhere else in Europe.

"Such an influx of highly skilled jobs would require the industries, the labour force and the infrastructure to all be mutually beneficial to each other - that is why a new town would make sense.

"A new Scottish town has not been designated since not long after the Second World War, now is the right time to begin a discussion to make a town called Independence a reality."

What are Scotland's new towns?

Five new towns were built across Scotland in the decades following the end of the war to ease overcrowding in the country's major cities, particularly Glasgow.

They were:

  • East Kilbride (designated 6 May 1947)
  • Glenrothes (designated 30 June 1948)
  • Cumbernauld (designated 9 December 1955, extended 19 March 1973)
  • Livingston (designated 16 April 1962)
  • Irvine (designated 9 November 1966)

They quickly became associated with poor planning and architecture that was hastily built from unattractive grey concrete.

Plans for a new sixth town at Stonehouse in South Lanarkshire were also drawn up in the 1970s, but the project was halted in 1976 after just 96 houses had been constructed.

A new town called Blindwells is currently under construction next to the A1 near Prestonpans in East Lothian.