In recent days we have seen Southwater on Midlands Today and in the Shropshire Star. Telford & Wrekin Labour councillors are congratulating themselves on spending £50 million of our money on this project. It is fantastic to have some excellent restaurants, but, we ask, are we getting value for money?
The council building contains the library and the Council information centre. Was sufficient care taken at the planning stage on its use? There is currently an empty floor and the council is proud that it is to be taken over by Wolverhampton University, but it could have been filled with council staff to allow the reduction of other expensive council buildings. Apart from this building, and the cinema we will have, in total, about 15 restaurants, employing about 800 people.
Under the Conservatives we would have had a council building which would have housed all our council staff, and it would not have cost the tax payer one penny – sale of Malinslee House £25 million, building of new council office £15 million, annual saving on heating & maintenance £1.1million, no cinema, instead shops & offices, employing over 2,000 people, AND a great water world swimming attraction.
This Labour administration is losing and borrowing money hand over fist:-
Lost - around £300,000 on T-live, over two years.
£1.4 million lost on Newport planning.
Spent £300,000 on fencing a temporary only gypsy site, to borrow a further £800,000 for a permanent gypsy site, despite having already spent £1.75 million of Government money given specifically for this project.
Borrowing £5 million for the Solar Farm which will take years to get its money back, if ever.
Labour sold their own council houses for £100 million, then spent all the money and now want to borrow £52 million to build 425 houses for rent and set up a company to do it, none of them available for ‘right to buy’. Again, years to get our money back.
The council debt may triple under this Labour administration to £300 million.
£13 million has been cut from Adult & Children’s services, while at the same time putting £5 million into a community fund, in itself a laudable aim, but in these times of austerity is it a wise decision?
This is a smug and very politically run council and it is doing no favours for those of us who are financing them out of our wages and pensions.