Vibrant and Viable Places regeneration funding
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Posts
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Now you are scraping the bottom of the barrel Dylan. Isolated spot? Grosvenor Rd to town centre? I could spit further!
How you can state that Council is the main beneficiary of the sale of its’ OWN land is beyond me. Let me remind you that the Council work on behalf of the citizens of Wrexham County Borough, so that land is OUR land, therefore the proceeds are for the benefit of all residents of the Borough.
And besides, it was not too long ago that complaints were made on this very forum as to why the Council didn’t sell the almost derelict properties. Damned for not selling, damned when they do.
Coherent arguments please!I take your point that the land is ‘OURS’ – the fundamental issue then is that ALL Council assets belong to the people yet we do not have a say in how these are used which are kept and which are sold. It is point that all Council Members and Officers should realize next time they decide to close or reduce a service without asking people first. Council Members are elected custodians of our community assets that does not however give them an absolute right to make decisions without discussions with the electorate.
The Vibrant and Viable money was given to Wrexham Council ( public funds paid for by us) therefore when they spend the money to help a company develop an asset surely a percentage of that asset should belong to the Council. In the case of Grosvenor Road development the land belonged to the Council and a hefty £2.6 million of the Vibrant and Viable budget is going towards the development. Shouldn’t a percentage of the resulting asset come back into the ownership of the Council ( us the ratepayers)?
Direct quote from the Welsh Assembly when announcing Wrexham’s allocation of the Vibrant and Viable Fund :-
Empty Properties/ Vacant Land into Homes.
“A new loan scheme will bring properties back into use and build new homes in and around Wrexham town centre. The loans are recyclable – when they are repaid, the money is used to fund more loans”
That certainly puts a different perspective on the matter doesn’t it?“In February 2014, Wrexham County Borough Council were awarded £10,594,000 grant through the WG ‘Vibrant and Viable Places’ (VVP) scheme. A significant element of the VVP programme focuses on improvements within the PRS. These include a loan scheme for private sector landlords, a scheme to provide business support for landlords and £100,000 grant in 2014/15 to support the establishment of the LLA. This funding has been factored into the financial model for year 1”
£100,000 grant towards setting up a Lettings Agency by the Council , seems to be a mixture of loans and grants. More ” horrendous cuts” we have been told this week and then you read the Council intend spending £100,000 on a new speculative venture!
This idea is one of the stupidest the Council have come up with in a long time- they cant balance the books on existing operations how do they propose to suddenly start making profits. If they have people with a commercial operation knowledge then why haven’t they been able to run services already.
This week the LEAN MEAN machine from PCW — Price Cooper Waterhouse (at least 6 of them) the accountants have moved into the offices above the Contact Centre in Lord Street. They are in on a contract with a base fee plus percentage of the savings they can identify. The morale with Council staff is rock bottom at the moment because of all the cuts.
Does anyone know of someone working in the Council at the moment who is not worried about their job.. we may knock the Council on some of these threads but there are some really decent people who have ideas about streamlining things but are rarely listened to by managers who operate a culture of preserve the top level and loose the lower levels. Defiantly not a good place to workThis week the LEAN MEAN machine from PCW — Price Cooper Waterhouse (at least 6 of them) the accountants have moved into the offices above the Contact Centre in Lord Street.
That would probably be PwC – Price Waterhouse Coopers
@99DylanJones 13827 wrote:
Does anyone know of someone working in the Council at the moment who is not worried about their job.. we may knock the Council on some of these threads but there are some really decent people who have ideas about streamlining things but are rarely listened to by managers who operate a culture of preserve the top level and loose the lower levels. Defiantly not a good place to work
When John Bradbury retired as Chief Officer they did not replace him,but passed his duties to the Chief Officer for Housing.They seem to only lose the top jobs by retirement.I agree with you Dylan that a culture of preserve the top level at WCBC seems to exist.It has been jobs for the boys for years,who have created their own empires to protect themselves.
Hopefully the PWC information would be made public and they actually talk to lower tier staff who often have operational ideas to save costs but the message either never gets to the top or if it does it falls on deaf ears.
Perhaps one of the problems is that the cuts of higher level management costs more in the short term with compensation packages being so large.
If the Council want to compete with the private sector then they should be open and a level playing field– how they think they can run a business when they have failed over the years with the rest of Council services shows how they are full of their own egos
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