Shirebrook DEBT- heavily redacted and shameful secret of STC
A taxpayer-funded authority (BDC) lends taxpayer money (450,000) to another authority (STC) also funded by the taxpayer. The authority that has so gleefully jumped into the debt abyss (STC) decides to withhold all the loan details from the owner of the money- supposedly for his benefit. Why should the taxpayer worry that his town is drowning in debt? After all, hiding the truth about debt has worked so well for Labour and society in the past!
Why should the taxpayer need to know that someone at STC made a gross error which resulted in STC not getting a loan from the PWLB while exposing themselves to thousands of pounds of extra interest? Fact- from the time the BDC loan was taken until now, STC has added another £10,000 to that debt. We will also have to pay interest on that ten thousand, and with rising interest rates, that could be a considerable amount of money. In the private sector, someone would be fired. In the Labour-led STC? It’s all been swept under the carpet.
Carpet that I will lift a bit in this article.
ROLL, ROLL, ROLL THE… DEBT GENTLY DOWN THE… TAXPAYER THROAT!
Honestly, I don’t know why Labor is so afraid to talk about the town’s debt. I have no idea why they are trying to hide it. It baffles me that they allowed the debt to grow year after year instead of paying it back. The Labor Party in Shirebrook does what their London friends did back in the days of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown: roll the debt. Roll, roll, roll the boat until the boat overturned, and thousands of people went under. Here’s what it looks like today under the leadership of Chris Kane and his buddy Steve Fritchley.
YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT!
I asked about this debt at my first STC meeting in May 2021– Town Clerk said nothing new had come about the matter, and if something did come up, I would be informed. After that, I asked about the debt at several STC meetings- I got the same answer repeatedly: nothing new. So I sent in a request (twice) to put the debt discussion on the Agenda- both times, the Town Clerk ignored my request. In my opinion, the second time Town Clerk blatantly broke the law- because I submitted the request in accordance with all the requirements of the law. Did she do it on her own initiative or under Labour Party pressure? I do not know. I know that when Labour councillors send in proposed agenda items, they get on the Agenda without a problem. Double standards?
However, the fact is this: The Labour Party is PANICALLY afraid to discuss the debt. Not one councillor who is a Finance & Growth Committee member mentioned the word ‘debt’ at that committee meeting. Not once. Not one Labour councillor said the word debt at a “Precept Meeting” (a meeting devoted solely to the town’s finances which means the subject of debt should, by all means, be brought up). When I asked a question about debt at the end of the meeting: the Chair of STC, Chris Kane, closed the meeting and… ran out of the room.
I wrote an extensive article about this, and if you haven’t read it and listened to the recordings I posted there: please take a moment and listen for yourself who sounds like someone with legitimate concerns and who sounds like someone trying to hide the truth. You can listen to the recording of this incident in full here:
https://shirebrook247.com/2022/01/31/me-what-with-debt-chair-im-closing-the-meeting/
The word “debt” was also not discussed at any AGM I attended. Neither by Labour Party councillors nor by the Town Clerk.
WE WILL UPDATE YOU! DON’T WORRY!
The Town Clerk, publicly, at the meeting, assured me that if there were anything new on the matter, she would report it. I was told the same by the Chair of the Operations Committee – I have a record of both events. Why, then, did a document come into my hands confirming that there were new facts in this matter, new documents that someone signed “on behalf of STC”, and yet STC councillors were not informed? Is that legal? I do not know.
Who is this mysterious person signing documents on my behalf without my knowledge? That will be addressed in a moment.
DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
At a tripartite meeting between myself, the Town Clerk and the Chair of STC, I was told that the loan issue is exempt – meaning I cannot talk about it in public. Secret. Confidential. Shut up, or you’re in trouble. I had to turn off the recording device when we got to this point in the conversation agenda. The case involves taxpayer money, but the taxpayer can’t know about it. This is madness; I don’t agree with it, so I looked for others who would agree with me. I found them in the form of officials of the authority that granted the loan, the BDC!
Yes, you read correctly! STC says the debt is a secret matter, I say the opposite, and the BDC is sympathetic to my view. I am the councillor with the shortest experience in the Chamber, and I am up against 15 councillors with a combined experience of probably hundreds of years. However, when confronted with reality- once again, my views win out, and the STC Chair stands like a pillar of salt staring at the documents I put under his nose.
SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
I am surprised that the Labour Party wanted to hide the details of this loan – what is there to be ashamed of? The whole world is running on debt, and as long as it is sensibly managed and repaid, there should not be the slightest problem. Debt is an impulse for development and an incentive to manage resources wisely. Maybe that is the Labour Party’s problem – that debt is neither being repaid nor sensibly managed. For God’s sake, the last few years have been a time of historically low-interest rates! Any sensible person knows that this is the best time to pay off debts and that they will not get any cheaper! Those who pay today will save money tomorrow—a lot of money.
It seems that Labour Party councillors would look a lot more professional if they didn’t treat residents like stupid children. But, of course, they don’t have to play with details like honest work or treating voters with seriousness: they’re going to win the election anyway, riiiight? It would be enough to have more transparency and the courage to talk about problems and mistakes openly to eliminate all room for conjecture and speculation. Instead, whenever they start hiding something, they create the impression that something bad, dark, or corrupt is going on. That does not have to be the case.
This is what is happening at the moment with the Leisure Centre heating contract with AMP. Instead of sitting down and explaining it as quickly as possible, they are starting to spin, blab, hide and avoid answers. I do not understand this. Bah! If they were a bit more prudent, courageous and open, I wouldn’t have anything to write about.
But yes, the AMP scandal is only just starting to flare up, and we have its first victim: Sandra Peake is no longer Chair of the STC Leisure Committee. Of course, Labour will claim that this has nothing to do with the AMP affair, but you and I know that the heating bills are a scandal and an example of a complete lack of oversight. So we have a new Chair of STC Leisure Committee.
THAT WILL DO
This affair further proves that the Labour Party in Shirebrook cannot plan for the future. Everything is done in the spirit of “that will do”. This is precisely what happened with the building of the new Town Hall. Instead of waiting for a loan from the PWLB, STC pulled the money for it from BDC. Except that someone who made that decision and those who voted on it “dropped the ball” and failed to notice that a condition of receiving a loan from the PWLB is that an application must be made for planned development, not a commenced/completed development.
16 STC councillors plus 4 BDC councillors with decades of experience- none saw this coming. Again- it reminds me of the Leisure Centre heating bills from AMP. For years, no one at STC has noticed that according to the bills we receive from AMP, we are paying £190 for supposedly 1 kWh, but that £190 is not the price per kWh, and in fact, no one but a handful of “insiders” knows what we are buying. I looked at the bill once and knew that I was getting something strange.
I‘ve been trying to find out what “quantity” means on an invoice from AMP for a month. I still do not know! Transparency Labour style! I wrote another Freedom of Information Act request to investigate the complete AMP documentation. The 21 days stipulated by the Act to reply have passed – Town Hall has not responded. Very suspicious. Thus the Town Clerk, in my opinion, has again broken the law. Question: did she do it on her own initiative or under Labour Party pressure? I also tried to find out what the quantity was directly at AMP. I reached the highest levels of management! Don’t hold your breath: the director of “something or other” eventually replied that…. would not answer me. Hehehehe! It was a couple of beautifully wasted days!
10,000 REASONS TO TALK ABOUT IT
STC took on a debt of 450,000 in 2018. One would expect that we have already paid something back. Even paying back 15,000 a year would have already cut our debt by a decent chunk. Bah! If someone in the STC had a bit of oil in their head, they would set aside a certain amount each year so that when the repayment started, we would have the money ready for it without having to sell “family jewels” or raise taxes.
To this day, Labour has not repaid a pound. Labour hides every fact about it. “The Post” doesn’t seem to have written about the debt once, yet they “extract” thousands of pounds from the STC “for advertising”. That 10,000 could go to crime prevention, youth clubs, flower beds, elderly programs or anything else to make our town better. If we ever start paying off that debt, then those extra thousands will go to BDC and never return to Shirebrook.
Your money is taken out of your pocket by the hands of Labour Party councillors. And you would know nothing about it if it wasn’t for the handful of people who went to the voting booth in the May 2021 election and voted for someone other than Same.Old.Labour.
REDACTED TRUTH
The documents I received from the BDC are heavily redacted. However, you can clearly see that someone sign those documents “on behalf of STC”. Who? And why is that person signing documents on behalf of Councillors without informing them about it? I think there should be a discussion about it. I doubt Chris Kane will allow it- God forbid they will tell the truth for once!
I am posting below a sample document showing the rolled-up debt out of journalistic duty. Once again, therefore, it presents something that none of the residents has seen before. Transparency done right!
THIS ARTICLE IS WAY TOO LONG, AND I RUN OUT OF IDEAS FOR PARAGRAPH TITLES
I know, I know – I have come up with a long article again. Please bear with me a moment longer because I want to share the answers to the questions I asked the BDC.
QUESTION ONE: I would like to request an electronic copy of any document related to this loan that has been sent by Bolsover District Council to Shirebrook Town Council and from Shirebrook Town Council to Bolsover District Council from the time it was granted up to and including today. If this is not possible, I would like to know if Shirebrook Town Council has contacted Bolsover District Council about the repayment of this loan in the past six months, and to receive a copy of these messages and replies to them.
Answer: Please see attached 8 signed agreements for the investments.
In line with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am unable to fully comply with your request because I believe that some information is exempt from disclosure under Section 31(1) (a) (Law Enforcement) under Part II of the Freedom of Information Act.
My comment: I understand that I only received part of the documentation because the second sentence is so cleverly constructed that there may be much more behind it than just the sheets I received. What more? I have no idea.
QUESTION TWO: I would like to know who on behalf of STC negotiated the changes to the terms of this loan after it was announced that PWLB rejected the loan application from STC, making the “bridge loan” from BDC the final source of financing for the construction of the new Town Hall in Shirebrook.
Answer: No information held as there was no negotiation of “change of terms” as these are Treasury Management Fixed Term investments. The Treasury Management strategy which is approved annually by Council allows the Council to invest with other Local Authorities including Parish Councils. The investment plus the interest was rolled over into the new investment each time. This is common practice in treasury management.
My comment: From my point of view, this response is typical bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. The official does not mention the PWLB, as if this element was not in the puzzle at all. I guess that for BDC officials, the PWLB loan is irrelevant, but this makes it look as if STC had planned from the beginning to take the BDC loan and the PWLB was just a smokescreen: after all, the BDC interest rate is more than three times lower than the PWLB. So just why are they not repaying this loan now? I don’t want to go into it again- think what you like.
QUESTION THREE: I would like to request information on whether it is true that this loan is due to be paid back in April 2022. If not- when this loan is due to be paid.
Answer: The current fixed term investment matures on the 14th April 2022.
My comment: NOTE: I received these documents a few days before April 14 (this shows how long my publication process is now – the queue of articles is starting to crush me). Even though this data is being published for the first time today, the debt is already larger than the chart I presented at the beginning of the article. Labour and the STC have simply once again hidden the fact of the debt rollover from me. Not a word was mentioned at the STC meeting about the new thousands of pounds added to the BDC loan! Labour style!
Isn’t the maturity of a loan whose amount exceeds the town’s financial reserves something councillors (and residents) should know about? According to the Labour Party- no!
QUESTION FOUR: Shirebrook Town Council’s audit reports show that the amount of the loan has increased since it was deposited into the STC account, from 450,000 to approximately 457,000 today. I would like to receive information about the interest rate on this loan at the time it is taken out and at the moment, and about any additional fees that have been imposed in connection with this loan on Shirebrook Town Council.
Answer: There are 8 fixed term investments, the first taken out on the 3rd December 2018 for £450,000. The principal invested, interest rates and interest charged on each investment is shown in the attached. No other fees have been charged. Answer 2 covers this too.
My comment: I do not understand why there is such a fluctuation in the interest rate on the BDC loan. However, it is worth noting that the highest interest rate on a BDC is 0.85, while the interest rate on PWLB loans is around 2.80%. The problem is that a BDC loan (from what I understand) has to be repaid in one transfer, while a PWLB loan can be spread over 20 to 50 years.
Anyway, even with that 10k extra, the taxpayer would probably save hundreds of thousands of pounds if STC repaid the BDC now. In my view, that is Labour’s plan. I have to admit: a good plan. So why are they so secretive about it? If it’s not a plan, you have to brace yourself for a 20% tax rise. Maybe even 30%.
QUESTION FIVE: At the Bolsover District Council meeting on 2nd February 2022 councillor Tom Kirkham ask a question: “-Would be possible to receive a copy of the business case made by Shirebrook Town Council for a loan”, Cllr Tom Kirkham asked this question in 43 minutes and 16 seconds of this recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsappvUfTbI
I would like to receive a copy of the same document as well. I request a
copy of the “business case made by STC to obtain bridge loan”.
Answer: No information held. A business case was not needed as these are Treasury Management Fixed term investments which are allowed under the Treasury Management Strategy. Investments are placed for a fixed period of time, at a fixed interest rate which is determined by the market conditions at the time and length of the investment.
My comment: This is so sad it’s funny. Tom Kirkham is a Labour Party councillor who has been stabbed in the back by the Labour Party (Glapwell scandal). To save his chances of staying in office, Tom Kirkham has to bribe the people of Glapwell somehow. But, do you know what’s even funnier? Steve Fritchley’s response in this video. According to the BDC, there is no such document, yet Steve Fritchley promises to send it. So, in other words, they made a fool of him by cutting down trees despite Tom Kirkham winning the vote to block that decision, and now they are making a fool of him by promising him something that isn’t there.
Hilarious.
THE END. FINALLY!
I honestly don’t know how to sum up this article. From start to finish, it is one big Labour Party frenzy. Mismanagement of public resources, lack of oversight, lack of vision, and secrecy- it’s all there. Yet- I do not doubt that Labour fanatics (because there is no other word for those people) will ignore the fact that Chris Kane and Steve Fritchley play with our money like in casinos. Can you imagine how this debt will grow if the BoE interest rate follows inflation and, at some point, reach double digits?
Town Hall could cost us millions. I, therefore, appeal to Labour Party: pay debts! Now! Before it’s too late…
Sylwester Zwierzyński info@shirebrook247.com
