Labour Party guide on how to lose £68,000 in just two months…
A few weeks ago, I met with Town Clerk. Among the many problems I raised at this meeting was the extremely high expenditure by the Leisure Centre and complete lack of knowledge about this in the community. I was looking for a source of this issue, and I think I found it. One of the things that shocked me was the number of people working in the Leisure Centre. There are 17 people on the Leisure Centre payroll.
Yeah- you read it right: seventeen. When Town Clerk told me that, I thought I heard it wrong. I would accept a still high number of 7. But 17? In such a small building? In my opinion, that would explain why Shirebrook spends 100% more than Bolsover or South Normanton and in effect: have to put 100% higher taxes on residents. The only way to make this burden more bearable is to increase scrutiny, cut costs and increase income. That is why I was not surprised when I was categorically denied insight into LC’s wages expenditure. Would I find some Labour family and friends on the payroll? I don’t know. I will never know… Town Clerk and STC Chairman were quite adamant in their refusal when I asked could I analyse wages spending.
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER CASHBOOK
I received the latest cash-book sheets with a document pack for the next Full Council meeting. With a rudimentary knowledge of the Leisure Centre salary costs that I gained at the Town Clerk meeting, I can now roughly estimate the monthly cost of running an LC. A moment spent on spreadsheet preparation, and we have a bill of roughly £82,000. But how much was earned at that time??? Well… hold on to your hats… the figure is… £13,678.56
That’s Labour Party value for money!
Below is the monthly breakup followed by few sentences of commentary.
CRAZINESS IN CRAZINESS
The loss of such a sum in just two months is shocking. On top of that- a few of the payments I found in cash-book are really weird—for example, almost £400 for an LC advert in the Labour Party propaganda paper- The Post. It looks like taxpayers in Shirebrook have to pay for Labour propaganda regardless of his political views. Funding private propaganda newspaper from council money is normal, Cllr Steve Fritchley?
Other weird payments are heating costs. In the warmest part of the year, Shirebrook taxpayers paid around £4,000 for LC heating. Two thousand in August alone! For HEATING! Is it me, or it’s something fishy? No quotes for that, no second thoughts, and no questions on STC meetings. All is good in Labourland!
£1000 for the music fee? Oh, those ex-miners would be happy knowing that someone will listen to music paying for it with their money. Minimal wage workers at SportsDirect can’t wait for the next council bill- they will cut their home expenses just to give those posh Leisure Centre users opportunity to buy music! What the hell is the music fee anyway, and why do taxpayers have to pay it???
But everything is shadowed by a £49,825 payment described as an “outstanding savings payment”. I won’t comment on that before asking about it at the meeting. The payment description is weird as hell, so I was so intrigued by it. I searched the company name behind that payment. No website, no Facebook page. Office? Virtual only. Employees? Two. After some time, I found that this firm is connected with the solar energy wing of BP. So I can speculate that this payment was a fee for solar panels or something like that. Still- when you read the amount paid and the payment description, you have an impression that something doesn’t add up…
For now, we know that: we lost £68,000 in just two months. So should we rename Leisure Centre for Debt Centre?
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
Lead photo from Pexels.com
