!!! 147% increase in payments to pellet delivery contractor

The pellet scandal just got new colours! This enormous increase happened after I lost my seat at STC. A 147% increase in payments to AMP (the pellet delivery monopolist serving STC) should raise eyebrows across the entire town. Right?

This revelation should shock everyone — especially councillors. Especially because it happened after I left STC. Yet, sadly, Labour councillors at STC abandoned scrutiny the moment after I lost my seat, allowing the taxpayer to bear the burden while unusual activity at the Leisure Centre spiralled out of control. Today, I will show you the data, charts, and the sad reality of Labour Party economics on a small, Shirebrook scale.

WHERE DOES THIS DATA COME FROM?
The tentative efforts by a few new Reform councillors to conduct an audit are even more justified when you look at the data I present below. I extracted this information from documents buried deep on the STC website. By law, public bodies like STC must publish details of all payments over £500.

I did not know this until a few weeks ago, but Tina Price (thank you!) noticed it and directed my attention to it by sending me a short message that ended with: “type ‘500’ into the search box on the STC website”. So I did. And… the floodgates opened. Pandora’s box exploded. The swamp overflowed my hard drive.

BEFORE WE DIVE INTO THE PELLET SWAMP
I fully support Reform’s presence on the council. However, if they agree to co-govern with Labour, they should at least start with a full audit — so they are not building the future on the rotten foundations of the past. Let me underline this again: for me, a Reform/Labour coalition is unacceptable. I hope it will be short-lived.

Yes, Reform is in the minority at STC. Yes, I accept that their mission is to rebuild residents’ trust in the STC and restore proper town operations, so for now, they have to work with what they have. And yes — I was harsh in last week’s article, but I did it deliberately. I wanted to send a message to the new councillors.

A REMINDER
Last week’s article was a reminder. A reminder not to trust Labour. It was no one else but Labour who dragged our town into this mess. Anyone who thinks Labour has somehow changed must ask one simple question: why do they still refuse to release invoices for pellet deliveries from 2013–2015, along with contracts, meter serial numbers, and seal numbers? If there is nothing to hide, why hide it?

Labour manipulated Reform into this coalition for one purpose only: so they can later blame Reform for everything or suggest that guilt is shared — including the pellet scandal. Let me show you how Reform has just stepped onto a landmine set up by the Labour Party.

TAX YEAR 2022/2023

This was my last year as a councillor. I started asking questions about the Leisure Centre, and after years of enormous pellet consumption, usage suddenly dropped. In real terms, thanks to me, it fell from 80,000 kilograms to just under 50,000 kilograms. That is a huge reduction. A huge saving of taxpayer money and CO₂ emissions. A win, right?

Remember how much we paid for pellets that year, and compare it to the totals in the tables below. Total spent in tax year 22/23 was £16,844.26. Decent. Acceptable. But even in this year, I spotted several curious items:

• Invoice 10497 appears twice (October and November 2022) — is this an error, a split payment, or incompetence by whoever prepared the cashbook?
• Invoice 10605 appears three times (January, February, March 2023) — another error? Laziness? Carelessness? Or townclerkiness again?
• August 2022 — the warmest month of the year — shows a notably high payment of £3,368.61 for heating. The double invoice reference suggests either a catch-up payment, a bulk delivery, or two deliveries recorded together.

TAX YEAR 2023/2024

By this point, I had left the council. Spending jumped from £16,844 (2022/23) to £27,870 (2023/24) — a 65% year-on-year increase. For me, that would have been a red flag: a clear sign that something was wrong. What did a 100% Labour-led council do? Nothing. Whoever was supposed to monitor spending clearly neglected their duties.

The entire Leisure Committee appears to have fallen asleep at the wheel. The Labour majority slept while someone… well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Anyway, the total spent that year was £27,870.13 — but it is the next year where this scandal becomes truly vile. Additional anomalies worth noting:

• August 2023: A payment labelled “Wood Pellets Short Fall” for £4,758.61. What is that? A penalty for not burning enough wood — a consequence of net-zero insanity. We paid PENALTY for not burning wood.
• Invoice 10870: Appears four times (November 2023, January 2024, February 2024 twice), totalling £12,013.59.
• February 2024: Two payments on the same day — £946.12 and £5,000. Why split them? No idea. Ask your Labour veterans: Dale Smith, Fred Gobey, and Brian Murray-Carr.
• September 2023: A cheque payment (reference 409437) was credited back in October and then reprocessed. I have no idea what happened there. Administrative chaos?

TAX YEAR 2024/2025

Compared to 2022/23, payments to AMP increased by 147%. Why? Just look at the numbers and compare them to the year when I was sitting on STC. Where was the Leisure Centre supervisor? Where was the Town Clerk? Where was the scrutiny of 16(!) Labour councillors. Not a single one of them saw that? After I was banging about it for 4 years??? Really?

But this year was notable for more reasons. In July 2024, there was a single payment of £10,683.40 — the largest pellet payment in three years. This alone raises serious questions.

Based on one invoice that includes pricing data, the cost works out at roughly £340 per tonne. That means £10,683 would buy around 31,000 kilograms of pellets. That is more than half of the entire yearly usage when I was a councillor — purchased in one month — and no one raised a red flag.

How was such a huge quantity of pellets delivered on a small lorry? The access road to the furnace does not allow vehicles over 14 tonnes, which typically carry no more than 8 tonnes of load. That suggests multiple deliveries. Basically, every week. Yet, in the AMP report, the Town Clerk clearly stated that deliveries are ordered ONLY when the level of pellets goes under a certain, low level. It’s supposed to be an automated system. I ask again: am I the only person who sees that and thinks, ‘Something does not add up‘?

I WORK IN LOGISTICS. THERE IS NO LOGIC TO DELIVERY PATTERN
How did they fit this volume of pellets into the furnace storage? What happened to any pellets that could not be stored at the Leisure Centre? I asked for technical details of the furnace to estimate holding capacity- why was I denied that document? Can we see meter readings on invoices to compare heat output and efficiency over the years?

The short answer to all of these questions is: no. How do I know? Because I asked. I submitted multiple FOI requests. I tried everything. I pleaded with the Town Clerk, opposition councillors, and Labour councillors alike. It all fell on deaf ears. I was laughed at, ignored, and then attacked. Believe me — I did my best to protect residents from waste, mismanagement, and worse. I scrutinised as thoroughly as I could. Sometimes the good guys lose. That’s life.

Anyway, we can’t change the truth. Total spent in tax year 2024/2025 was £41,566.34

SAME BUILDING, SAME NEEDS, SAME FUEL, SAME FURNACE — YET…
After I left STC, the average payment size continued to increase. Same fuel, same furnace, same needs. Cost? From 1.8k per month under my eye to 5.2k under Labour eye.
Year | Average Monthly Spend
2022/23 | £1,872
2023/24 | £2,787
2024/25 | £5,196

That is why I was refused access to inspect meter seals when I was a councillor. That inspection was made by Brian Murray-Carr and one other cllr (don’t remember his name). Cllr Brian Murray-Carr never showed pictures of those seals. No report back. Ever. He still sits at STC and most likely- he voted against my co-option.

That is why I received heat-load data for only 2 of the 12 years. That is why someone at STC instructed AMP to remove meter readings from invoices. This fact was revealed in correspondence from AMP that I obtained through an FOI request: “it was the customer’s choice.” Not AMP’s decision — STC’s.

From what I understand, someone in the council specifically requested that meter readings be excluded from invoices. A strange request, don’t you think? Even more so, this runs counter to standard practice — and I have evidence in the form of an AMP invoice issued to another customer, with meter readings clearly included. Would you agree to pay for your heating, not knowing how much energy you actually used? No? You just did- in the Leisure Centre run by the Labour Party.

TAX YEAR 2025/2026

Then… a miracle happened. STC Leader Chris Kane accepted a £1,000 Chairman’s Allowance cheque — against auditor recommendations — and resigned shortly after.

In the months that followed, the average payment fell well below previous levels. How much lower? Total spent (April–December): £10,612.22, which I can estimate will grow by the end of the tax year to £ 16,000. Remember that figure? It is the cost that occurred in 22/23 when I blew the cover of that scandal. Now imagine- discrepancies found by me occur in years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, 2025.

And some Labour fans still describe me as a bad man…

You would have to be blind not to see the pattern. There is another curiosity in this period: AMP changed its name — twice — in one year. The supplier name shifted from “Amp Heat Ltd” to “AMP Biomass Fuel Ltd”, and then to “AMP Clean Energy”. This mirrors the same pattern seen with the company that signed the solar panel contract with STC. But that is a different story entirely.

So why did pellet usage fall so dramatically? I have a theory — but for the sake of the new councillors, I will leave it to them to find the answer. They will ask for it, right?

REFORM OR CONFORM?
To the Reform and Independent councillors who voted for Dale Smith as the Leader of STC: how do you feel knowing that Dale Smith voted to block an investigation into pellet discrepancies when I was trying to solve that mess? You still think that working “together” is in the best interest of the town, or rather in the best interest of Labour elites, desperately trying to hide scandals or at least mix you into them.

Councillors and readers! Do you understand now why Labour voted against co-opting me? Do you understand that nothing will change until past issues are properly resolved? Do you accept the simple fact that those who cover the corruption should not be in charge of clearing it out?

You cannot build a house on a swamp. Yes, it might look fine at first — but then it will slowly start to sink. Evidence? Look at the pellet usage pattern. I fixed it for a while when I was a councillor. But because I could only address the symptoms, not the cause, everything sank back into the swamp. Only when the town forced Chris Kane to resign — addressing the cause — did things begin to heal and reveal their true colours.

CORRUPT PAWS OF KANE
One more bit about the guy who get 100% vote of Labour in the Leadership contest in 2023- including the vote of Dale Smith. They awarded him the highest position in town after multiple scandals and violent outbursts in the STC Chamber. Then he took a cheque for 1000 pounds from STC, and right after, he… resigned. Evidence? Again, from STC documents:


But there is more weirdness in the screenshot I presented above of Kane grabbing the last paycheck from STC. Look at cheque numbers- suspiciously round and… L M Fencing Ltd has no VAT payment. Ltd company without Vat? That is not illegal, but it is highly unusual. And imagine now- Town Clerk dumped on new councillors DOZENS OVER DOZENS of pages like that. This bit is just 4 lines out of multiple pages full of them. Only 3 councillors abstained in vote to accept those payments…

One more thing: when I was a councillor, the auditor recommended that the “chairman allowance” be paid as PAYE, not by cheque. Why did the Town Clerk go against the audit recommendation? Hmm, why, oh why!

A CALL TO ACTION
Councillors: you cannot align yourselves with those who worked overtime to bury scandal after scandal. The Labour Party is not your friend. They will manipulate you. They will play you. They will lie to you, and if you insist, they will turn hostile. Take that to the bank. They have so many skeletons in their wardrobe that they need you on their side before you start to notice them. They will be friendly, sweet, and maybe even beneficial to you. Don’t let them corrupt you.

Please table a motion at the next full council meeting requiring the Town Clerk to fulfil my outstanding FOI request and release all pellet delivery invoices from 2013 to 2015, along with all related contracts I requested in that FOI. There is no reason not to do it. Table it. Ask for a recorded vote. Vote yes.

What we pay — and why we pay so much — should not be a secret. It is our money. So why, oh why, is Labour so hard-core against us having this knowledge? What is in this contract that Labour wants to hide from us so badly?

JUST AI FUN
I reviewed all 500 sheets. Then I fed them to my AI. I engineered a good prompt, then tweaked it, and we talked back and forth. In the end, he gave me a list of things that he found… worth investigating. Can someone tell me why we paid 18,000 for a photocopier?