IT is simply not possible to please all of the people all of the time.

Any single decision is going to please person A, but equally annoy person B. Person C will take to the internet to hail this decision as the best since sliced bread, only to be met with the resounding argument from person D that this is the worst decision since New Coke was launched in 1985...but possibly using more colourful language to convey this message.

We had the first meeting of the Greenock Town Board last Friday.

This group will oversee the development and use of the Greenock Town Fund – an opportunity for regeneration and improvement for Greenock, which crucially comes with additional resource to enable works to happen.

The issues and challenges within Greenock are known and documented. Whilst there is resource via the Town Fund, it is not going to be a panacea for all the challenges we face. So, what are the priorities? What should we do? This formed part of the discussion on Friday, and it was a particularly useful discussion.

I know that, if we make decisions to address one challenge over any other, some people will be unhappy at the choice made. We have another arena where it simply will not be possible to please all of the people.

I know that being effective as a Town Board will mean proper and sustained engagement with the communities of Greenock (geographical or thematic) and honest communication throughout the time of the developments. It was important to me to express this decisively last Friday at the outset of our work.

Communication is key.

We see this with the recent decision by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC), regarding the GP out-of-hours service. Councillors, MSPs, and our MP have consistently called for better communication from our health colleagues about the decisions they make that affect Inverclyde.

At a recent briefing about this particular decision, we received information showing the levels of public perception of the out-of-hours service across the individual authorities of the board area. Communication is not working well here in Inverclyde, or certainly not as well as in other parts of GGC, and that needs to improve.

We continue to press health colleagues about this.

In terms of the decision itself – I remain certain that while the health profile of Inverclyde continues to be the challenge that it is, I will be calling for as much resource as needed, as many services and more staff to be allocated here.

It is important that health services do in fact serve the community, and that we additionally have resource that is preventative and health promotive – it will not be okay if we have the same health profile here in twenty years’ time.

It is simply not possible to please all the people all the time, but with every decision I make, I will seek to have an evidence base behind it, a clear and communicated reason for doing it, and the decisions made by my group will always have the needs of our community at the centre.

Persons A and C might naturally be pleased, but I would also always like persons B and D to understand where I am coming from.