MORE FROM OUR LEADER

Does anyone else find it ironic that the brass necked Kieran Quinn, esteemed Labour Leader of Tameside Council publically now takes credit for the large amount of investment that has recently been granted to firms expanding in Tameside, when he and his fellow Labour councillors did nothing but pour scorn on the investment scheme when it was introduced to replace the bureaucratic Regional Development Agencies?

 

Speaking again from his Leaders blog-site,- know locally as 'Carry on Kieran' (which does not carry any facility to post comments) he announced that the Tameside based company, which is backed by German investors, called Culimeta Saveguard, has been granted a £730,000 loan from the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) to expand into Tower Mill, from their current base next door in Tame Valley Mill, a move that expects them to increase turnover and create 50 new jobs by 2016.

This fantastic news comes just a few months after another Tameside company, Hill’s Biscuits of Ashton, also received RGF funding with the potential to create an additional 45 jobs.

According to Keiran's blog, he tells us that it just shows what this Council is able to achieve when it works with the private sector, despite the hardship generated by the current financial climate.

Now forgive me Kieran lad, but this is the same Regional Growth Fund that the coalition introduced to replace the "failed" Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) set up by Labour, isn’t it?

The same Regional Growth Fund that you and your fellow Labour councillors criticised as unworkable and a pathetic fig leaf to cover the absence of any growth strategy."

The very same Regional Growth Fund that has also enabled the council to build a new road to open-up development land which has been designated as an employment site for more than 30 years?

Strange that the Labour loved RDA didn’t manage to fund that during it's lifetime, isn’t it!

The problem with the Regional Development Agencies was that they had great intentions, great plans and great glossy brochures saying they were going to achieve this, that and the other, but they were a bit remote from the entrepreneurs, from the business people, from the people in their homes who wanted to set up small companies with just one or two people.

So here we are again,stuck with the same old Labour. No new ideas, still spending what we haven't got and failing to tackle the real problems. Just drifting, and performing a few slight of hand conjuring tricks to fool the public. All at the expense of the tax payer.

Carry on Kieran, - can’t wait to hear next month’s announcements.