Market Costs
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Posts
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In your report re-Market costs, you highlight an invoice –
‘One invoice we saw was to ‘replace faulty lamp and starter’ in the Butchers Market in February this year, in basic terms changing a tube light. Raw materials on one invoice show £5.46 for a 4 foot tube light, and £1.82 for a starter for the light. The weight of the invoice is made up of labour for an electrician, taking an hour and a half at nearly £23ph to fit and test the light.’
Can I ask? Do you expect a professional tradesman to turn up, fix and replace a lamp and then only charge £7.28 for the parts? I do not see your point in highlighting [no pun intended]the labour charge!
Was it a slow news day or just the usual ‘knock the Council week!’
I think the bigger issue her is knowing what the total income is and what were the total expenses — yes there is a market manager but I doubt if they are being paid £100K plus so are the markets actually generating quite a substantial ‘profit’ for the Council and are the surpluses actually being used for any Town Centre promotion–
I do not that they have been spending on newspaper adverts in a paper that has a circulation of only about 7.500 covering Wrexham, Flintshire and Chester– how many Leader readers are likely to be potential customers of the market!I am in total agreement with Daaave on this one. If my memory serves me correctly, this is not the first time that Wrexham.com has had a pop at WCBC regarding repair costs in the markets. I am at a loss to understand what you are trying to achieve. I can only assume that it is a personal thing and not something that is published in the interests of openness and transparency.
How many of us have been hit with a call out fee of £50 or more before anything even gets done and then billed for parts and labour on top? But then, Wrexham.com would never balance their reporting if the truth interfered with their anti Council stance.
The journalistic talents have diminished so that we, as readers, are left with what can plagiarised from NW Police tweets, meaningless Planning Applications and other assorted dross.
if Wrexham.com means itself to be taken seriously as a credible news outlet, it certainly needs to up its’game and report on things that matter, not with the principal aim of filling column inches.“The weight of the invoice is made up of labour for an electrician, taking an hour and a half at nearly £23ph to fit and test the light.
Another invoice for ‘attending to faulty smoke alarms’ in the Butchers Market trader toilets lists two 9 volt batteries for a normal £4.72 . Again, the weight of the invoice is made up of a hour and a half labour charge at just under £22ph, presumable to fit and test the changed batteries.”
The time taken to replace a bulb and fit a battery amazes me , are we paying for travelling time ?
[quote quote=103899]“The weight of the invoice is made up of labour for an electrician, taking an hour and a half at nearly £23ph to fit and test the light.
Another invoice for ‘attending to faulty smoke alarms’ in the Butchers Market trader toilets lists two 9 volt batteries for a normal £4.72 . Again, the weight of the invoice is made up of a hour and a half labour charge at just under £22ph, presumable to fit and test the changed batteries.”
The time taken to replace a bulb and fit a battery amazes me , are we paying for travelling time ?
[/quote]
Money is being wasted top to bottom/bottom to top all the way through within the Wrexham Council, and to be fair is probably much the same throughout the country, this sort of instance/example is just the bottom of the ice berg, or is it tip !!! and as far as having a pop they need a good popping :)
…After being in the markets this afternoon it appears this article has highlighted a few things with traders questioning figures in the report that is going before the Councillors.
RE: BenjaminM, if you can pop up a link to other reports on the documents and associated repair pricing I would be interested to see how such things are done er, ‘properly’?
If I recall correctly you were equally upset over the ‘iniquitous titillation’ over the Remembrance Day expenses claims again https://www.wrexham.com/forums/topic/expenses-for-councillors-and-offucers
Interestingly at that time you said we ‘will never be in the running for the Paul Foot award for investigative journalism’, and although not at those heights yet this comes at a time where the current edition of Private Eye are running our story on the overcharge over police mobiles, although you do not appear quite so vocal on police matters.
[quote quote=103889]I am in total agreement with Daaave on this one. If my memory serves me correctly, this is not the first time that Wrexham.com has had a pop at WCBC regarding repair costs in the markets. I am at a loss to understand what you are trying to achieve. I can only assume that it is a personal thing and not something that is published in the interests of openness and transparency.
How many of us have been hit with a call out fee of £50 or more before anything even gets done and then billed for parts and labour on top? But then, Wrexham.com would never balance their reporting if the truth interfered with their anti Council stance.
The journalistic talents have diminished so that we, as readers, are left with what can plagiarised from NW Police tweets, meaningless Planning Applications and other assorted dross.
if Wrexham.com means itself to be taken seriously as a credible news outlet, it certainly needs to up its’game and report on things that matter, not with the principal aim of filling column inches.[/quote]
Other forums are available.
I do not wish to enter into your little game where you make statements (facts they may be) without the appropriate qualification in support of sensationalistic headline seeking.
The vast majority of tradesmen either set a minimum charge for their work (usually 1 hour) with 30 minute increments thereafter, or set an appropriate call out charge. To not do so, would be detrimental to their business and not worth their while to carry out work that may take only 20 or so minutes to complete.
It must be remembered, that tradesmen do not work for the pleasure of it, but like the rest of us, to support themselves and their families. In that context, I consider the charges levied, reasonable and appropriate.And yes, you are quite correct, I did make comment regarding the Remembrance Day expenses claim and to this day, I still consider your ‘scoop’ to be sensationalistic and inappropriate.
Congratulation by the way, on having an article in Private Eye,if indeed Wrexham.com was the source, although I have no desire to prove or disprove your assertion. Furthermore, I have no reason or desire to be ‘so vocal’ on Police matters, as they are not subject to being pilloried on such a tedious, regular basis.
Thanks for the long reply – to repeat – do you have a link to show where there has been any other examination of the markets reports and spending?
If a 20 minute job is not worthwhile to a tradesman so they charge and hour and a half to make it more digestible , are you saying Wrexham Council should approve of that, and in turn let Wrexham’s market traders subsidise the subsequent bill? Surely procuring someone who is more amiable to the work could be better?
It is worth noting that the traders themselves are people as you say ‘do not work for the pleasure of it, but like the rest of us, to support themselves and their families’.
Far from being an unimportant matter, this question is vital and should be reported with some sort of forensic analysis. Given the background of the Council seeming ready at one stage to can the Peoples Market, I can think of nothing more vital for the town than to ponder on the nitty gritty of what actually goes on in the Markets.
Firstly, there is the state of the revenues in play. These are the sum totals of the rents and services charges derived by the Council as a result of its Market offer. There may well be additional monies that come to the Council in the form of grants and alternative revenue sources. Given the 150+ units that are involved across 3 Markets and the adjacent shops, this represents a considerable amount of potential revenue.
Secondly, there are the outgoings and associated costs of running the Market. These will divide into the various fixed costs that relate to the Markets and the variable costs that intermittently come into play.
The reason that Wrexham.Com has reported this vital question is that there would be currently no political question pertaining to the Markets if the various units were let effectively and if the various costs were comparably contained. The fact that this is not so has led to a ridiculous situation whereby WCBC has concluded that the Markets are either not viable at all or that they are not viable without radical reconfiguration.
I don’t agree with either conclusion.
The simple truth is that bad management has under-optimised on Revenue and generated excessive Costs. Whilst Benjamin, with no knowledge whatsoever of any of Wrexham Markets, has concluded that those who draw attention to some of the fine detail of the Cost-Revenue equation are somehow inherently prejudiced against the Council, most of us, who have direct experience of the shambles that are the Markets, merely want to see them salvaged even at this late date.
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