WHY WOULD 70 BUSINESS LEADERS TAKE ANY NOTICE OF SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER RUN A BUSINESS?

In his recent blog, our gallant leader opened his narrative with:

"I am not an island!"

“No man is an island” “…and the same is true with councils as well. To achieve our goals for Tameside we cannot assume that the Council has all the answers and solutions!”

A great sentiment when it was written and so very true today!

But I think that our Kieran actually spoke better than he intended when he addressed the recent council run ‘Breakfast Business Summit’ attended by over 70 local businesses!

Let me explain.

Christmas Pudding anyone?

Let’s go back to the 6^th September 2013, where a ‘Key Decision’ was taken by Cllr John Taylor, (who was then, and still is responsible for Markets) along with the Borough Treasurer and the Borough Solicitor to grant approval for an annual Christmas Market to be held in Ashton for an initial 3 year period; after which it was to be reviewed and a decision made as to whether or not to continue.

Weighing up those stipulations and ignoring basic logic, instead of testing the water by hiring in 30 wooden Christmas Chalets for approximately £18,000, someone within the council persuaded ‘The Strategic Planning and Capital Monitoring Panel’ to grant £69,000 of capital funding to buy the materials to construct 30 pseudo Christmas Chalets from scratch. (These we were told would last 10 years!) and as if money was no object, a further £97,000 of revenue funding was granted, per year, to manage the event for the initial 3 year period, which in total cost Tameside council taxpayers £291,000 for the scheme.

Get there early to avoid the crowds!

After the first year, the council told us, the Christmas Market was a great success – claiming that it had attracted over 3000 extra visitors to the Market Hall! (yet how they arrived at that figure without counting people in or out, one can only guess at)

Last year too, despite the location being adjusted and timings changed to protect the lost earnings of resident market retailers the previous year; we were told that that too was a resounding success!

 (Although anyone who experienced it, tells a different story)

"I had a vision!"

Now here we are at year 3 and because the council have implemented their ‘Vision Tameside’ which has had the effect of ripping up Ashton’s entire market square, there will be no Ashton Christmas Market, as there is, apparently, no room!

So much for a ‘forward looking council’ and its vision!

So, what do they do with the 30 Christmas Chalets that they have been storing year after year?

Based on the fact that they have told us that for the first two years, these Christmas Market events had been huge successes; do they show basic business logic and distribute the Christmas Chalets between Hyde, Stalybridge, Denton or Mossley, so that they too can benefit from a smaller, yet successful Christmas themed Christmas Market event in their town? After all, their resident shopkeepers do pay the same amount of business tax to the council as those of Ashton and notwithstanding the fact that the council have encouraged all those towns to form ‘Town Teams’ of proactive local people, whose task it is to try to engender vibrancy into their towns and boost trade from further afield for their resident retailers.

But of course this is Tameside, where the words business, profit and foresight are complete anathemas!

So no, dear reader, rather than set up these already paid for Christmas Chalets in one, two or three of the borough’s other town squares, they have seen fit to rent a number of them to Rochdale Borough Council, so that Rochdale’s retailers can benefit from putting on a town centre Christmas Market event!

Brilliant, Kieran! What an astute businessman you are!

With the Metro now fully up and running; hundreds of Ashtonians can get on the tram and travel to Rochdale’s Christmas Market and spend their money with Rochdale’s retailers, while Tameside retailers have to stump up extra monies to get their Christmas lights turned on!

It really answers the question, why many of Tameside’s town centres are losing their shops through falling trade, when the council pulls mind-blowing tricks like this!

In 2016, we will once again be asked by these council gravy-train ‘visionaries’ to give them our vote, so that they can carry on in the same old way, constantly finding new ways to fritter away our money, whilst we taxpayers receive sub-standard services.

This time, let’s use that vote wisely. In all honesty a group of cardboard cut-outs would be better qualified to run the council than this band of blundering buffoons!

Maybe we should respond to Kieran Quinn’s opening remarks by quoting the last line of John Dunne’s famous poem; - ‘send not to know for whom the bell tolls Kieran. It tolls for thee!’