TAMESIDERS' PRAY FOR A SHORTAGE OF INK!

In a bid to justify spending millions of taxpayers’ money tearing down (TAC) Tameside Council’s Administrative Centre, and replacing it with another structure; Cllr John Taylor, who it would seem is currently not only responsible for markets, but is now a self-proclaimed Building Design Consultant, expert in Urban Design, qualified Planning Officer and Conservation Professional, has once again given us the benefit of his extensive knowledge; this time in respect of contemporary architecture.

In his latest diktat to his dwindling bunch of supporters, he has put pen to paper to blame the last Tameside Conservative Administration for passing the plans to build the existing building some 40 odd years ago! – And here’s me thinking he was a humble welder!

We must have missed the part where he achieved his Dip.Arch,.RIBA which might have  gone some way to adding a semblance of credibility to his latest ramblings, or is he again merely twisting the facts to create a nice propaganda tool for himself – to impress those who are naive enough to believe it?

If so, his latest letter is nothing more than an opportunistic swipe at a typical 1960/70’s office building that if John Taylor was so incensed by its architectural appearance, he missed his chance to voice his opinion in 1979 when it was being built. After all, we know he has no aversion to writing letters! 

In fact, he writes so many these days that one suspects he might be in line to receive a special responsibility allowance from the council’s leader Kieran Quinn for services to the ink industry.

Ironically, in his letter, he referrers to the current buildings ‘nicknames’ – 'The Gas Holder', 'The Dustbin' and 'The Kremlin'. However, I suggest that those names were created by the populous in response to the antics of those career councillors who have dwelt within it and who have exercised overall control of Tameside for the last 36 years.

He then springs forward to the term ‘Vision Tameside’ – Now, cynically speaking, I should say that a man prone to ‘visions’ and leading his people into yet another new age sounds like a dangerous nutter to me, but really it is just the sort of daft title that is expected from pompous politicians nowadays.

Anyway, in his ‘vision’ he tells us the ‘new place’ will be built to the latest energy-saving regulations. That will make it much cheaper to run, saving a lot of money – in the long run!

Wrong on both counts obviously, because it will take many decades to recoup the demolition and new-build costs, and as for saving money, well perhaps the visionary councillor can tell us how many unannounced millions it is going to cost to firstly repair and re-organise both Hyde and Dukinfield Town Halls to allow the smooth transition and accommodation of all the administration staff; the communication and computer systems, the archives and all the customer service facilities, etc’ from the current building in Ashton and then a couple of years later, move it all back again into this ‘visionary’ money saving building; - which will no doubt be filled with brand new carpets, fixtures and fittings and enough office furniture to comfortably satisfy the backsides hundreds of administration staff and local heroes.

After all, one doesn't spend millions on a state of the art building and fill it with tatty chairs and chipped, worn out desks!

Tatty and worn out, creatively deficient councillors maybe, but not furnishings!

Then, after the reversal, let us ponder on what the future will hold for the relatively empty Hyde and Dukinfield Town Halls once all the administrative staff have vacated the newly configured council offices and trundled back to Ashton? Does anyone know? Have we been told? Surely, there must be a plan!

The visionary councillor once again gazing at the past tells us that over the years, the Tameside Administration Centre had become a huge barn of a place and was costing a fortune to heat. But of course the councillor forgets to mention that because of growing computerisation throughout the 80’s/90’s and from 2010, the Coalitions policy of cutting of Local Government spending and bringing it down to manageable levels, office space has become abundant throughout the country.

There are still many empty offices in St. Petersfield, that have never been occupied and that’s on a regeneration project that has several phases still to be completed!

He also won’t mention that over their 36 year occupancy the council piled on so many extra staff that Libraries and other buildings had to be transformed to handle some of the front line functions; let’s not forget when Labour came to power in 1997, state spending accounted for 40 per cent of Britain’s economy. Thirteen years later, they left a country in which that figure had risen to 52 per cent and the bloated public sector increased by almost another one million employees.

That army of new workers fuelled the rise of the notorious non-job: hugely generous public sector wage packets for an often incomprehensible work descriptions.

He then makes another rather confusing statement.

‘Revenue is being saved and being reinvested in these buildings ensuring many more years of use for our communities. Jobs before buildings!’

It’s been announced that the council is expected to spend around £13 million on its new eco-friendly premises – around £2 million less than what it would have had to spend to refurbish its existing offices.

Does anyone else find it odd that whenever any of these politicians use the word ‘save’ it is followed by the word ‘reinvestment’ which means spend.

So where is the saving? Where's the taxpayers money back?

And as for the style of the proposed new eco-friendly Tameside Administration Centre, will you could be forgiven for thinking it was designed by a colour blind sadist and looks like it should be on a low-rent business park somewhere, not overlooking a traditional open market! – or is that going too?