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Tom McLaren
• ClIr Thomas McLaren neither owns nor drives a car, so as a life-long passenger and now chairman of the new Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Authority he does know how the public feels about public transport. The 62-year-old Labour councillor was discussing a transport problem with a tea lady when I called at the City Chambers to see him. He listened carefully and promised to look into the matter as she complained at having to walk up a long hill to catch her bus.
Tom McLaren wants a public transport system which is both "plentiful and cheap". When he heard that the new PTA would inherit a deficit of almost Om from the Corporation undertaking he spoke out against putting the fares up. "So far as I'm concerned," he said, "it doesn't mean a fares increase. The transport committee has already made an approach to the Secretary of State for Scotland for some financial assistance. Its possible we shall renew that request."
An active trade unionist for 40 years, he defended the staff whose wage rise had largely caused the huge deficit. "These workers are not being overpaid," he said. "They are getting only the increases that are their due." It was Tom McLaren's trade union background that brought him into local politics. However, he is not the hectoring, dogmatic type, but is a quiet-spoken man, stating his point of view simply and briefly. Not that he sits in the background. He is convenor of Glasgow Corporation transport committee, on which he has served for the past nine years, and sub-convenor of the planning committee. He is still on the district committee of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers and is a shop steward; by trade he is an engineering fitter.
His life-time experience of negotiations will serve him well as an administrator co-ordinating the interests of municipal transport with the Scottish Bus Group and British Railways.
What plans does he have for the new PTA?
He wants to see the re-opening and electrification of the Central Low Level railway line from Rutherglen to the city centre, which was closed under the Beeching regime. This would be served by feeder buses linking suburbs to the Rutherglen station. Plans are also in motion for a new bus station at Killermont Street plus an improved station at Anderson Cross.
"Hobbies? I haven't any," said Tom McLaren. "No, not even gardening. Apart from my daily job, I spend five to six hours a day at the City Chambers and what is left is taken up with union work. No time for anything else." F.W.