Oakham Town Council Considering Debt, For extra play equipment

At the last Council meeting the Assistant Clerk let slip the word borrowing.

She made a rather poor attempt to wriggle out of what she said.

Other Councillors raised concern and we were told it was not being considered. Cllr Guthrie expressed concerns as we have reserves earning next to nothing in interest payments, why would we borrow and pay large amounts in interest payments?

I question who is running Oakham Town Council after receiving a email from the Clerk this morning, My reply and his email below:


Dear All,

I thought the council had agreed reserves would be used.

Cllr Dewis said we are likely to have reserves of £60,000 next year.

Mayor Cllr Lucas said failing to raise precept would mean we have no money.

Its clear no one knows the true financial situation of the council.

I will not support borrowing just so our Mayor can feature in the local press. Its time we stopped this egotistic  behaviour. Why  does every  Mayor have  to be seen spending large sums on high profile play projects.

We must not create unessary debt for the public

From

Martin Brookes

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard White
Sent: 11/04/11 11:03 AM
To: Rob Guthrie, Maureen Dodds, Martin Brookes, Joyce Lucas, John Nowell, Jayne Woodcock, Chris Hopkin, Charles Haworth, Allison Greaves, Alf Dewis, Adam Lowe, Peter Lockett
Subject: Borrowing

All

Whilst appreciating that some, or possibly all, of you will not have seen your agendas for next week I am writing to summarise a discussion I had with the LRALC yesterday.

Your supporting documents for an agenda item concerning the budget expands on comments made in the first budget report you received. This relates to the possibility that the Council could borrow a sum of money to finance the agreed work at Royces Playing Field

The procedure for this is quite involved:

The documents with the agenda ask that next Wednesday you make a decision on whether or not to borrow. This decision, if you so decide, should be "In Principle" . Following this, the Chairman and I will then discuss the matter further with the LRALC and a report will need to be prepared for members' consideration. Once the decision is then formally made to borrow then a number of forms have to be submitted to the LRALC who then check and send them to the Department for Communities and Local Government. This is then considered and approval, hopefully, obtained.

The whole process could take 4 -5 months from the initial "in principle" decision to the Council receiving the money.

An important point, is that the Public Works Loan Board has now tweaked its rules and now says that the total cost of the project itself should exceed the minimum amount to be borrowed (which it does). This means that the Council does not have to borrow from the PWLB the full minimum amount detailed in the report and could therefore use some of its own funds for the project.

 

Obviously, if members do not feel that the Council needs to borrow and that it will finance the project itself then there is no point in taking the process any further.

Richard White
Clerk to Oakham Town Council
01572 723627
E-mail: rwhite@oakhamtowncouncil.gov.uk