I was on Market Square yesterday, and I noticed two STC employees fixing a broken door at the public toilet. This reminded me that I need to inform residents about one of our town’s most blatant money waste examples. I spoiled it in the title but still- not only numbers are shocking but also the details of that deal.
Some time ago, I sent a Freedom of Information request to STC asking for a copy of STC cashbook sheets for the last couple of years. Reading through it was an eye-opening experience, but it proves that my presence at STC had a positive effect on the town’s financial state. There is an apparent change of “spending habits”, which occurred precisely at my first try to win a seat at STC and lasts to this day. Enough to say that since I started to expose the behaviour of what is going on in STC- staff wages expenditure fell by about 20-25%. Just like that, we saved £100k per year… weird, right?
Of course, I will pin that to my chest as a winning badge, but in reality, I have to admit- STC had to clean its act because they noticed that they were running out of money. Even with 30% tax rise in last 5 years. I found an exact moment in documents when STC saw the bottom of the bank account and how Labour Party used taxpayer money to cover that. I will write about this “moment of reflection” in the coming weeks. Let’s focus on “building” at the top of the text for now.
AT THE MEETING WITH TOWN CLERK
Public toilets at Market Square– very few of us use them, almost no one thinks about them. Yet when you dig into cash-book details, you will quickly find payment for it- its stands out like a sore thumb. After all, not every day local government can afford GOLD SERVICE toilet costing almost £11,000 per just six months…
I asked about those weird payments at my meeting with Town Clerk. She was adamant that she had nothing to do with it, and the “deal” was signed before “her time”. It’s clear that she is not happy about it- as well as a few other councillors. Who signed it? I have no idea, but I assume that Labour Party discussed and voted on this deal, and they agreed to it. Who’s signature is under the agreement- I don’t know. What is in agreement? I don’t know the details but what I know is that:
- Shirebrook residents pay about £19 600 per year to a company called Healthmatic Ltd for something called “”Gold service””;
- Shirebrook residents pay a business rate of £64 per month (est £768 per year);
- Shirebrook residents pay all man-hours needed to maintain toilets clean (I’m unable to estimate cost);
- toilets are maintained and cleaned by STC employees;
- Shirebrook residents pay for all maintenance and cleaning supplies(I’m unable to estimate cost);
- Shirebrook residents pay utility bills for the toilet (for example, in the tax year 2018/2019, I found two payments for that totalling £102. There could be more- it’s just hard to notice small amounts in thousands of lines of text, and I don’t have time to review each line. I just trying to focus on the big picture).
The private company reaps a massive income from Shirebrook residents pockets– shouldn’t they be responsible for bills and maintenance? It’s like all costs are public, but all income is private. I spoke with a few more involved in town issues residents about it, but I will not comment on alleged “brown envelope” accusations that came up.
For me- this deal smells terrible, and it’s not only because it’s about the public toilet. The deal seems to be corrupted at its base. According to Labour Party, everything is perfectly fine, and we should not talk about it. Even better- people should not even know about it: that’s why this deal is secret, “contractual”, “exempt”. Labour Party ladies and gentlemen!
JUST A FEW PINTS PER YEAR
Some time ago, a Labour Party propaganda paper (partly funded by Shirebrook taxpayer- article about that is in the making) “The Post” published something like an explanation for my accusations about enormous spending of STC. Chair of STC- Chris Kane wrote that we pay the “cost of just few pints of beer more than others”. This statement was clear manipulation. Yes- we pay a few pints more but on what time scale? Few pints per year wouldn’t be a big problem. Few pints per day is alcoholism.
The Chair of STC deliberately didn’t use real numbers. Why? Well- he would have to reveal that per capita residents of Shirebrook pay 170% more tax than a resident of Bolsover, yet Bolsover cash reserves are 400% higher than those of Shirebrook. If we stay in the area of alcohol metaphors- it looks like someone drank a sea of beer and didn’t tell about it to the rest of the Shirebrook residents. This party is only for Labour Party insiders!
Some lefties call maths racist… but let’s not be distracted by idiots. So let’s go back to the matter at hand; let’s play with numbers again. “Toilet deal” was signed in 2013, but I don’t know did we pay a full sum that year, so I will use 2014 as a start year.
In that 7 years since “we” got that deal, we paid Healhmatic Ltd £137,200 for… toilet?
Since the start of the deal, the estimated cost of business rates has been £5,376.
The estimated cost of utility bills is £800.
We should add the cost of maintenance and supplies.
In other words -the cost is enormous, the deal is shady, all profit goes to the private company, yet we bear all operating expenses. But there is something scarier- as far as I know: the deal is signed “forever” or until “major refurbishment of Market Place”.
On the tenth anniversary of the signing of this agreement, the bill paid by the people of Shirebrook will be well over £200,000. This anniversary will fall in the same year as the next STC and BDC elections… I have a weird feeling that Labour won’t mention it on their election leaflets…
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
