99DylanJones
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Glad others have felt the same as me– this is going to yet another fiasco. In view of potential county mergers – these are the types of schemes that the Welsh Government should freeze until the new structures are in place. This is not a party political issue but one of common sense.
It is such a pity that party politics is being brought into the Plas Madoc issue with point scoring. The main issues of budget overspends needing to be cut back is managerial/officers responsibility. Why then has a facility that has supposed to be losing so much money not had expert commercial consultation in to find potential income sources or a different funding model years ago even before the current administration.
The real problem lies at officer level for not maintaining the property as part of an on going scheme of works. Who decided that they needed money spending on new corridors and office plans in the Guildhall rather than on Waterworld– spend the money on services for the community not to smarten up your own offices!!Good to see that there are some Councilors who seem to be seeing sense and called i the decision of the Executive Board.. Let us all hope that the Executive are brave enough to now start asking the right questions of the consultants and get the true facts.
Time will tell of hearts and minds rule over party poloiticsI fully agree but with ‘democracy’ in Wrexham Council almost disappeared the process of getting something debated by Council Members is almost impossible. Reports are presented by Council Members and not Officers so limiting the level of debate- certainly no Labour Council Member will ever challenge a report presented by anyone in the coalition.
The Public have the chance of submitting asking a question at an Executive Board meeting but there is no opportunity to actually debate the topic.
Look what happened with the Save the Plas Madoc questions — even with 2,000 people supporting there was no chance to have a discussion with the Councilors.
Try getting Council Members or officers to attend public meetings is impossible – staff members at the moment are so scarred for their jobs with morale so low that no one will put their head above the parapet.
I would hope that the Wales Audit Office when they come and assess the Council look on this site as it will clearly point them to work areas to investigate.Scrutiny and Executive
If ever you have some time on your hands go to the Guildhall to listen to the debate (use of the word debate is perhaps a bit misleading- even many Councillors accept that there is little debate on many topics).
At a Scrutiny Meeting you could see about 8 officers who don’t even present a report as these are no done by Council Members).
The Executive in the main Council Chamber has up to 20 officers and up to 52 Council Members yet there is often less than 15 Councilors and 2 officers that actually speak.
Do the sums and you soon realise what a financial waste this whole process is>
DylanThere are clearly many Leisure facilities that don’t make money – how come SERCO (A large multinational management company that run everything from Prisons to older peoples services) are now running the Leisure services in Shropshire. They are a profit making business so what can be learnt from their methods
Waterworld site, Crown Buildings, Police Station, Bodhyfryd Car Park , Memorial Hall — demolish the lot all that is left are the Law Courts plus a new road access from the Tesco/Asda road leaves a massive development site.
Link this to the new £15 million Vibrant and Viable Grant the Council have just had from WG and you have a commercial proposition that is worth aprox
£2 million for the site. This whole site is indicated in a few reports that are in the Council that went to an Equality Impact meeting.
The build if it was ever to take place for a new Waterworld would be on The Groves site which is shortly to be taken over by Colleg Cambria.
The Council have to do a rebuild or they owe Sports Council £1,250,000 to repay the loan they had to do the last refurbishment.
There are lots of jigsaw pieces to what is going on with only a couple of people at the top of the tree in the Council that have the plan- the others are just holding a separate piece.
Really can’t understand why our elected Council Members are not switched on to what is happening around them.The things coming to light about these solar panels is a real disgrace- I wonder what the Wales Audit Office would do if this information was shared with them as they are responsible for all Public Sector spending. I wonder if any of the Councilors who read this blog are prepared to raise the issues– by keeping quite they are as guilty as the officers who signed off the work.
Let’s see which one of our Councilors is brave enough to ask a question–I fully agree with the lack of inspection- look at King Street and Trinity Street. £1 million project completed in November and the roadway is already crumbling in a number of places and rain water is pooling on pavements. Disgraceful…
There are a few issues that mean Wrexham Council use outside of area contractors.
1. They have what is called Framework agreements which are supposed to only have contractors that do a job to the required quality at the right price! The latter is debatable as pointed out earlier there are overheads such as travel and accommodation which would not apply to local contractors — the only winner in this scenario are Bed and Breakfast and Hotels!
2. There has to be something wrong at Welsh Government and Local Authority level when they establish Procurement Departments yet very often WCBC DO NOT use the services of the regional buying consortium – fundamental question is why?
3. When you look at consultants reports you can assess that they have been given a closure brief rather than looking at a far broader approach to an issue- if a consultant does not produce a report to meet the needs of Officers or Council Members the report is scrapped and the consultants sacked — look at all of the consultants reports on transport reviews over the years – or the branding of Wrexham a few years ago. Both of these service ares have cost over £300k in 7 years with no results.The bump under the carpet where all these types of reports are buried is getting so large the door won’t be able to open!!
