This Labour council appears to have adopted a new approach
to communicating unpopular decisions and obscure reasoning to the public: If
something is black, they call it white. Say one thing; do the opposite, therefore
it's much more instructive to pay attention to what our councillors do than to believe
what they say.
I don’t know about you, but I'm getting rather fed-up of
hearing austerity advice from the humble councillor from Globe Lane, who week
on week, spouts his warnings that because of continuing cuts from central
government, this service has to be cut; such and such has to be shelved and publicly owned property and assets must be sold off, whilst on the other hand he has furtively
orchestrated to ring-fence, vast sums of money to fund the dubiously successful
Ashton Christmas Market for the next 3 years!
So, despite Hyde, Stalybridge, Denton and the other towns
barely getting enough funding to plug-in a set of festive light-bulbs to encourage
their towns Christmas footfall; according to a ‘Key Decision Report’ passed in
July 2013, approval was given for £69,000 of capital funding to buy the
materials to build 30 Log Cabins and an additional £97,000 revenue funding, per
year, for 3 years, to finance the scheme. That’s £291,000 of our council tax
money that was never disclosed up-front! At that point it would seem that Cllr
Taylor and the rest of the controlling cabinet had clearly forgotten the phrase
‘Austerity Britain’ and substituted it for ‘Opulence Unlimited’
So, when we are told that services are being chopped,
lollipop ladies dispensed with and community assets sold off, it’s not because
the council has no money. It’s because those whose job it is to seek out value
for money, just haven’t got a clue on what is a priority! - Surely this example
of extravagant speculative spending has to be one of the biggest manifestations
of hypocrisy that has ever been played on the people of Tameside!
Why on earth was it necessary to build 30 cabins at £69,000
when the very same cabins could have been hired for £13,800? And once the 2
week rents had been offset, they would have only cost £7,800! – A figure that
most people would find far more acceptable! In fact, at that price, the council
could have held two week Christmas Markets in Ashton, Hyde, Stalybridge,
Droylsden and Denton, and still had £30,000 left over for publicity!
Nothing is ever as it seems at Tameside Town Hall, because
it's not what officials say that counts. It's what they do - or don't do
The only thing that is truly consistent with controlling
councillors is that they're generally regarded by most people as untrustworthy
and do the exact opposite of what they say. Nice work if you can get it. And
once they've got it, history shows they hang on to it!
A situation that won't change until
there's a major clean-up of the double-speak that infects local politics.
An excellent post-as ever-Curmudgeon. Your closing line I see as a challenge, or rallying call, to the decent people of Tameside. Perhaps it is time we stopped waiting for "a leader / a party / someone" to emerge and do something, And did it ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThat man looks sinister to me
ReplyDeleteI'm sick of all the main parties, locally and nationally, and their 'we know best' attitude, ignoring the will of tens of millions of British people, on everything from immgration to the EU referendum (NOW, not in X number of years if we're lucky).
ReplyDeleteThe best way to give their complacent backsides a kicking is, VOTE UKIP.