Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Yet more contradiction...
In 2006 at the councils Grand scrutiny meeting, the councils ex-chief executive Colin Moore, a man who was found by two employment tribunals to have deliberately not told the truth, changed his evidence overnight and been found guilty of sharp practise that same year, made a statement to the Grand scrutiny meeting about The Coatham Enclosure scheme which went and I quote,
"The cost of the two swimming pools, bowling alley, leisure centre including five a side pitches and dance floor is £11.5 million. The Council has £14million secure through the capital receipt from Persimmon, Sport England Grant and prudential borrowing. This is £2.5 million in excess of the leisure provision requirements".
There are a few things which are significant about this statement. Firstly it shows that the only money that the council could speak confidently about regarding funding for the leisure, was the money from the sale of the land and millions and millions of pounds of money that was being borrowed, something that the council and the MP said could never be an option as this would raise peoples council tax.
But after the revelations of the past few days, what is also significant is that in the list of things that Colin Moore states are going to be provided ( 99% of which are all under the one roof of the leisure centre which is being paid for through all of the borrowing he mentions) he mentions a bowling alley. This bowling alley, as Council Officer Alan Logan told the court at the footpath hearing last March, would be sited on the site of the old swimming baths, the site on the Persimmon plan marked D2 leisure.
As has now been revealed, the council want to develop this D2 site themselves as leisure facility. Nowhere in the Persimmon plan does it mention this leisure facility, let alone it being on this prime site?
"The cost of the two swimming pools, bowling alley, leisure centre including five a side pitches and dance floor is £11.5 million. The Council has £14million secure through the capital receipt from Persimmon, Sport England Grant and prudential borrowing. This is £2.5 million in excess of the leisure provision requirements".
There are a few things which are significant about this statement. Firstly it shows that the only money that the council could speak confidently about regarding funding for the leisure, was the money from the sale of the land and millions and millions of pounds of money that was being borrowed, something that the council and the MP said could never be an option as this would raise peoples council tax.
But after the revelations of the past few days, what is also significant is that in the list of things that Colin Moore states are going to be provided ( 99% of which are all under the one roof of the leisure centre which is being paid for through all of the borrowing he mentions) he mentions a bowling alley. This bowling alley, as Council Officer Alan Logan told the court at the footpath hearing last March, would be sited on the site of the old swimming baths, the site on the Persimmon plan marked D2 leisure.
As has now been revealed, the council want to develop this D2 site themselves as leisure facility. Nowhere in the Persimmon plan does it mention this leisure facility, let alone it being on this prime site?
// posted by Chris McGlade @ 3:25 AM 
