Labour Party working class betrayal continues- Shirebrook pays the highest taxes in the District!
If you read the article “Money, money, money…” and felt angry or even furious: you should skip this one. The audacity of the Labour Party is boundless, limitless and quite frankly impressive. Shirebrook is the most impoverished town in District, yet the Labour Party imposed on us the highest taxes in the Bolsover District.
I want to underline- all data in this article is taken straight out of audit reports.
TAX COLLECTED
People living in 20% bigger Bolsover pay 215 000 tax less than us and their town looks way better than our- if you don’t believe me: go there. They have 2000 residents more to collect tax from (minus children), yet they collect two hundred thousands pounds LESS… Average taxpayer who live in the South Normanton pays half what we deliver in taxes to STC. HALF! I bet Labour Party will explain why this is happening… oh! Wait! They had an opportunity to explain it, and it ends up in a scandal.
I am still waiting for the CCTV footage of the last STC meeting. At this point, you can see that the Labor Party doesn’t want you to know what happened. Are they pressuring civil servants at STC to cover the facts and hide or even delete the recording? Someone at Facebook suggested that outright: they will try to delete the video. I did not reply to this comment as it seemed impossible to me at the time. Now? I’m not so sure… At this point, I can summarize the current Labour Party policy of transparency in local government as: “Shut up! Pay up! Or… we know where you live!”.
OTHER COST
The mysterious item on any budget summary. You can hide literally anything there. 1000 pound “allowance” for STC Chair Chris Kane? Hmm, this one probably went to staff cost? Or not? But Labour councillors said that Shirebrook looks beautiful and we have the “best cemetery”, so the highest spending on staff is justified. Right? Is it justified as well in the “other cost” segment of budget spending?
How will the Labour Party explain that our “other” expenditure is greater than the combined expenditure of Bolsover and South Normanton? (Bolsover + South Normanton = 375k vs Shirebrook = 456k) Ah! They will explain nothing or pin it on Leisure Centre and cemetery expenses. As an opposition councillor, my duty should be to explain this. But tell me- how I can clarify anything when STC enquires desk IGNORING my emails? I sent one about CCTV at 22:10 of 16.06.2021. No reply. I sent another one about the same issue plus few others at 8:12 of 25.06.2021 Someone read it because I turn on the confirmation feature on my email:
Your message
Sent: 25 June 2021 08:12:35 (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
was read on the 25th of June 2021 08:32:31 (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.
I’m writing these words on Monday morning of the 28th of June. Twelve days after the first request. Still no reply. Residents of Shirebrook pay almost 500 000 for council staff, and there is NO ONE TO REPLY ON EMAIL from a democratically elected councillor???
I received DOZENS of messages with demands to publish footage from that meeting– but residents should send that demands to STC, not me. I understand that residents want to know what happened there from other sources than my memory. I support that! Even I want to see how this situation looks like from a distance! Because from my point of view, it was a scandal and ultimate proof of moral bankruptcy of Shirebrook Labour Party. There is no doubt that Labour Party have some explaining to do. Just look at the combined cost chart (staff cost plus other costs) and then we will move to bottom line: how much STC earned after such a high spending.
SURPLUS/DEFICIT
Almost half of million on staff and another cool half mil in “other” cost. There is a saying in business: you have to spend money to earn money. So we could assume that STC makes a lot of money, at least as much as Clowne and Bolsover Councils, right? Riiiight? Well- don’t hold your breath. Even with this crazy amount of spending and taxation Labour Party cant break even.
As you can see above, we were solidly in the red in the last pre-pandemic tax year. After all Labour Party love red. Red is the colour of socialism- red flags, red budget, red blood spilt in revolutions and death camps, red eyes from crying after lost love ones: that is socialism that Labour Party don’t want you to know. After all: they are all for “gentle politics”.
If you wonder why Clowne doing so well in all of those charts- there is a reason. They kicked Labour Party to the curb a few years ago and today they operate under… Conservative leadership. Let that sink in…
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
Lead picture: Star Tribune/Sack
