Blackhole? No! It’s a Shirebrook Leisure Centre!
Once again, S247 brings you a piece of information that would have remained in the shadows if there was no non-Labour councillor on STC. If you want to skip my introduction and get straight to the point, scroll to section L / 21/012 of the report below.
Although I encourage you not to skip these first few paragraphs – they contain some critical comments, thoughts, facts. They are a kind of preparation for the biggest shock hidden in the LC(Leisure Centre) supervisor report presented at the last STC Leisure Committee(LCom) meeting. Why I used the word “hidden”? It is simple – none of the elements of this report would have been made public if I had not been at that meeting.
TIME IS MONEY
16 minutes and 58 seconds. That’s how long it took to go through all items on the agenda at the latest LCom meeting of STC. What a waste of time (and money)! From my point of view- if you cut apologies and minutes review, off-topic discussions between items- this whole meeting would take 10 minutes.
Why Labour insists on continuing to operate this pointless committee is beyond my understanding. Crime is on an all-time high, taxes are through the roof, we have the highest debt in the District, and literally, there is no conversation on how to fix that. For most of the summer, road verges looked like Vietnam jungle in the summertime. Bushes taking over pavements, and councillors talk about… clubs for toddlers, car shows, brass instrument concerts and fireworks!!! Priorities, right?
STC SPENDING INVESTIGATION. PRIME SUSPECT?
For months now, I’m trying to get answers about 500 000 overspending in the STC budget. Finally, I was able to set up a meeting with Town Clerk, but.. it will be supervised by… Chair of STC! Yes! You read it right. Why does a Labour representative want to be at this meeting? I think I know, but I will keep it to myself… I’m happy to have this meeting at all.
It’s funny- I tried to interview Chris Kane (Chair of STC) for a year and a half, and he has never found time for me. Now when they see that my investigation started to make waves in the community and people starting to ask questions- he forced his participation into a meeting that he shouldn’t be on.
MEETING WITH TOWN CLERK
In the beginning, I wanted to meet Town Clerk to ask about a few things for the guide for the new councillors, which I am writing at the moment. However, the list of questions has grown enormously and touches upon many aspects of our town’s life. Most of the issues I want to ask about were hidden in the shadows until I started S247 (town debt, cost of new Town Hall, PWLB loan, non-attendance of Labour Party councillors, taxation of residents and many more). “The Post” rarely write about real problems, but I will continue to do it as long as I sit at Council.
This is my subjective opinion based solely on a gut feeling: something stinks at LC, and I’m not talking about the low quality of pest control. Something really stinks with finances, and avoiding my questions so far has only reinforced my belief that I need to delve into the details and publish it. Each resident should draw his own conclusions. Today I can present a preview, a teaser of what is coming.
TO ERR IS HUMAN
To be fair- I can be wrong. Maybe STC spending £500 000 pounds more than 30% bigger Bolsover is justified. However, since we can’t expect honest, critical answers from the Labour Party and those who benefit from this money will do a lot to hide it, we need answers from someone outside the current establishment- someone like me. We need oversight and scrutiny, and I’m working my back off to provide it. Still, I’m only one, alone, inexperienced, against 15 Labour councillors and at this point- probably every civil servant who benefit from overspending in this town. I need help. So if you have a shred of local patriotism in you- I encourage you to contact me and talk about how you can become a Shirebrook Town Council councillor. Only fresh blood can breathe new life into fossilized structures of STC. Labour runs this town for decades. Do you really think they are able to change how they operate only because ONE councillor started to shed light on their mismanagement of resources??
OK. Enough of the introduction. It’s time for the main dish: report from LCom meeting.
L/21/009 TO RECEIVE APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND NOTE THE REASONS FOR THOSE ABSENCES.
I really hoped that we were slowly returning to normality and the Covid nightmare was beyond us. No! One of our councillors just got Covid and was unable to attend.
L/21/010 TO RECEIVE DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST.
No one declared any interest.
L/21/011 TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE LEISURE COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN COUNCIL HAVING BEEN HELD 30TH JUNE 2021.
Minutes were approved.
L/21/012 TO REVIEW AND NOTE THE CONTENTS OF THE LEISURE SUPERVISOR’S REPORT.
Here is where the fun begins. This is something that no one other than “chosen ones” knew. Among few other things, the LC supervisor reported income of Leisure Centre gained between the 26th of July and the 26th of August.
It was £6,984 and was up by £720 compared to the last pre-pandemic year. If you think that is a good result- hold on for a moment. I have additional facts.
One step at a time: we know that STC spends £500 000 more than any other authority in the region. The ONLY difference between STC and other leading councils (South Normanton, Clowne, Bolsover) is Leisure Centre. Nothing else is different- more or less the same population, cemetery, marketplace. So the cost should be similar plus some extra to maintain Leisure Centre. I doubt this half a million is spent entirely at LC, but we can roughly estimate the cost of running LC. When writing this article, I’m a couple of days away from meeting with Town Clerk where I should receive exact numbers. I will discuss them in a report after the meeting.
MATH! DON’T YOU LOVE IT?
The pre-pandemic staff cost of STC was almost £500 000. Let’s assume that the average wage of STC employees is £28 000 (a bit less than the national average but a bit more than the national minimum). This means that STC employs 12 to 18 people. Let’s assume 4 of them work at LC (supervisor, one on morning shift, one on afternoon shift, plus one to cover any holidays).
Even if we are very conservative and assume that each LC employee earns an average of £2,000 per month, the wage bill alone will be well over £9,000 (we have to add insurance and taxes). We must also add other costs like business rates, rent, utilities, stationery, pest control, equipment lease. I estimated it, and again- I was very conservative and assumed a monthly “other cost” of £2,500. Then I thought to myself- “Wait! I’m councillor! I have access to the STC cash book sheets. I can check exactly how much STC spend money to maintain LC”. So I pulled the July cash-book sheet and added all LC cost. I bet most S247 readers never saw the STC cash-book, so I scanned part of it for you. I chose one of the pages and detailed LC costs in a red rectangle. Then I sum up LC expenditure figures from all pages of the July cash-book sheet. Y’all ready for it? Strap up, boys and girls!
Accumulated LC “other cost” expenditure in July 2021 was… £6,340.41!
So I was way too conservative in my estimations. Anyway- the estimated monthly cost of running LC is £15,340. As far as I know the Labor Party’s approach to spending taxpayer money- the truth is probably more on the Byzantine side … (read: they spend way more than £9,000 per month on wages- but I hope I’m wrong here).
You could ask why I’m estimating the overall LC cost. Well- report of LC supervisor contained only income. No expenses figure, no calculation of profit/loss. Business much?
SOMETHING DOESN’T ADD UP
So LC supervisor reported £6,984 income. When I saw this amount on the report, a warning light went off in my head, letting me know that something was wrong with this figure. I didn’t know what, but it bothered me. So when I got home, I pulled out all the cash-book printouts I had collected since winning the by-election and wrote down the income from earlier months. Ready?
APRIL 2021- £986.50
MAY 2021- no income recorded in the cash book
JULY 2021- £2,296
up to THE 25TH OF JUNE 2021- £903
THE 26TH OF JUNE to THE 26TH OF AUGUST 2021- £6,340.41
The fact is that we had lock-downs, so we should not draw too many conclusions from these figures. It would be helpful if I could get figures for these months from previous years. Instead, what we should do is pull up the cash book sheets from before the pandemic. Back then, Labour Party councillors didn’t know they would have someone sniffing around their businesses …. Ohhh! I’m going to write a Freedom of Information request to get those sheets as soon as possible. It’ll be a glorious ride, and I’ll take my readers on this tour – we’ll be analysing these documents together.
NO ONE KNOWS- NO ONE CARES
Transparency is fundamental in a democratic society. Voters CAN NOT estimate how well the establishment manages resources if any information about it is hidden. Until now, all info about LC costs was hidden from the community. I doubt that anyone outside the “Labour family” knows what is going on with town finances (Am I the first to ask about it?). Voting based on partial data leads to situations where people who shouldn’t run pram get into decision-making structures.
We have this situation in Shirebrook. For decades…
BLACK HOLE- WHERE IS IT???
Last comment on LC. If my estimation is close to the truth, it will mean that LC overall cost is about £140 000 to £200 000 per year. It’s a damn black hole dragging our town into the abyss, and you have to remember that we still missing something like £300 000…
REST OF THE REPORT
There were other items on the LC supervisor report. I would report them in normal circumstances, but this article is already long enough, so I will leave something for “The Post” to report… I doubt they will publish anything about finances. Info about “toddler&mother groups” is more in their alley…
L/21/013 TO REVIEW ELECTRICAL WORKS QUOTATION FOR REQUIRED LIGHTING REPAIRS TO THE OUTDOOR PITCH, TO APPROVE ASSOCIATED EXPENDITURE AND TO APPROVE OPERATIONAL TEAM INVOLVEMENT.
Some yobbos damaged equipment at an outdoor pitch. Why are people doing that? I can’t get it- it’s your own taxes, your own things, created for you- yet you destroy it. So now- we have to spend extra money to bring it back to usefulness…
L/21/014 TO CONSIDER RESPONSES AS NECESSARY TO LISTED CORRESPONDENCE.
a. NONE RECEIVED TO DATE
L/21/015 TO APPROVE THE DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING OF THE LEISURE COMMITTEE.
(SET AT 3RD NOVEMBER 2021 AS PER THE APPROVED MEETING SCHEDULE)
END OF MEETING AGENDA
WAIT! THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS!
That should be it, but… right after the Chair of LCom closed the meeting, something odd happened. Usually, right after the meeting, I gather my things, get up and go away. This time I didn’t do it. Instead, I went to Town Clerk to remind her that I’m waiting for her to set up a date for our meeting.
When I finish talking, I thought the room would be empty, but when I get back to my seat to gather my things, I notice that almost no one moved. Practically no one got up and left. In fact- only Chair of the STC left. The rest (including the LC supervisor and Town Clerk) sit and wait. For what? I assume for me to go out. So I… sat down and… waited to see what is going on. It becomes weird. Really weird.
Have you ever been in a room when everybody looks at you with this unpleasant facial expression that suggests– “go the F away, we don’t want you here”. Yeah- that. That’s how I felt. So I asked what is going on. I will refrain from commenting on the answers I have received.
Basically, I have that “you are not welcome here” feeling at every meeting, but it was super intensive this time. Suuuuper intensive. At some point, I thought to myself- I will play along and stay until I am last to leave. However, I’m no social sponge- I work for a living, so after some time, I get up, left the Town Hall, went back home, change clothes and went to work. To earn money that later I will pay in taxes to support Leisure Centre that I never use…
When I left the room, I had a weird feeling that Labour stayed to talk about something they don’t want me and you to know, and as far I would love to know what they are hiding- even I have limits. I will fulfil my duties to the best of my abilities. I will read all documents, analyse them and inform residents about my findings, but I will not play in their games. If they want to hide something from the public- they will. It seems like it’s a Labour way…
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
Lead picture: commons.wikimedia.org/ NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman, cmglee
