Life

BDC APOLOGISES OVER ITS £879,000 S106 FIGURES ERROR

15 minutes ago

8 minutes read

I found two mistakes in BDC’s FOI reply. I challenged one of it — and this time, they admitted the error in writing. And apologised! Dear God! That must mean the end is nigh, right?! BDC apologising for a mistake??? Am I still alive, or am I already in heaven? Someone! Please! Pinch me!

But now, seriously — because the issue is serious. I’d be doing a disservice to the people working hard to bring this to a positive conclusion if I kept joking around. So let me start from the beginning.

UNSPENT £879,000 OF MONEY OWED TO OUR COMMUNITY
Last month I wrote about the Section 106 money tied to the Keepmoat development in Shirebrook. To gather as much reliable information as I could for S247 readers, I sent a Freedom of Information request to Bolsover District Council (FOI/1186). When BDC’s response arrived, one line stopped me cold. The Council said the £879,000 had been received on 1 March 2026.

That date didn’t sit right with me. Back when I was a councillor in 2021–2023, I was already pushing for this development’s money to be spent in the south of the town. I wrote about it in January 2023 — https://shirebrook247.com/2023/01/23/meadow-view-area-update/ — calling for the muddy, unlit Stinting Lane path between Meadow View and Bracken Ridge to be brought up to standard.

I raised it again in my ‘Shirebrook 2030’ plan in July 2025 here: https://shirebrook247.com/2025/07/19/shirebrook-2030/ — a proper paved walkway with street lights and CCTV between Bracken Road/Leen Valley and Meadow View. Labour’s response, both times? The usual. Nothing. In the same article I also appealed for a roundabout near the cemetery- weirdly that issue is also part of this article, but only because someone did exactly opposite thing.

THEN I FOUND A SECOND MISTAKE
Before I show you the second mistake the BDC FOI team made, I need to clarify what they apologised for. Straight from the lion’s mouth:

REJOICE, MY FELLOW SHIREBROOKIANS!
To their credit, they apologised properly (I use ‘they’ because if you pay attention to details- you will spot lack of signature). A Deputy Data Protection Officer carried out a formal internal review, consulted the Planning Policy Team, and came back with this:

“We apologise for the typographical error. The amount was received on 1 March 2016, not 2026.”

An apology. In writing. After an internal review. I don’t get many of those, so that one’s going on the wall. S247 did it again! But here’s the thing — the corrected date is where the real story starts, and it’s got nothing to do with an innocent-looking typo.

2016: A DECADE UNSPENT
The money landed in BDC’s account in March 2016. And here, from the Council’s own FOI response, is what has happened to it since:

Fact: £879,000 received in 2016.
Fact: £310,000 spent in 2018 — transferred to Derbyshire County Council for the traffic signalisation scheme at the Common Lane/Main Street junction (near the cemetery). I remember this one well. People on Facebook blamed Reform for that misguided investment, but the documents show it was planned years before. It took about six years to complete, and no record I have seen shows that STC was ever consulted. I use that junction every day on my way to work, and in my experience the traffic there is worse by leaps and bounds since the scheme went in.
Fact: £569,000 still sitting there. Unspent. “Plus any accrued interest,” in BDC’s own words. A decade after the money landed.

And here is the part that should make every resident’s blood boil: across that entire decade, the FOI record shows not one Labour councillor — at town, district or county level — is recorded as having raised the question of what happened to this money. The bulk of the responsibility sits with BDC, which held the funds. But nobody with a Labour rosette, at any level, is on record chasing it. I have zero evidence of Labour doing anything so far. Only evidence of any enquiries comes from… Reform Party DCC councillor Sarah Reaney. About that below.

NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT WHAT EIGHT YEARS DOES TO MONEY
I keep hearing that “there’s still time to spend it” — the formal clock doesn’t start until the final property is built, expected in 2027. Technically true. But that argument misses my point entirely, and here’s why.

Since that money arrived in 2016, general prices in the UK have risen by around 41%. A pound today buys roughly 70 pence of what it bought when this money landed. Most of that damage was done in a brutal stretch between 2022 and 2023, when inflation hit levels not seen in decades — peaking at over 11% in a single year. Construction and engineering costs, the very things this money is meant to pay for, rose just as hard, if not harder.

Put plainly: if this money had been spent in 2018 or 2019 — before the inflation wave — it would have bought materially more road, more infrastructure, more actual benefit for Shirebrook than it can possibly buy now. But nothing was done. As usual. And as usual, Shirebrook voted them back into power. A reward for doing nothing.

THE AGE OF SHRINKAGE
Every year that huge sum sat in that account, it quietly shrank. Not because anyone stole a penny — but because doing nothing with money, for years, during the worst inflation in a generation, is its own kind of loss.

Second issue: did you notice how long it took local government to build the traffic lights near the cemetery? Those who think five years is a long time to spend this money have never had any dealings with local government under uniparty management. So let me say it again: while the record shows no Labour/Conservative councillor chasing this money, we are running out of time. If that doesn’t change, half a million pounds could go back to the developer.

AND BEFORE ANYONE BLAMES THE WRONG PEOPLE…
As I mentioned, I’ve heard residents pin the mess at the Common Lane/Main Street junction on the current leadership of DCC — the Reform Party. Let me correct the record, because facts matter more than blame.

That £310,000 decision was made in 2018. At that time, both Bolsover District Council and Derbyshire County Council were under the control of the established parties: Labour at BDC and the Conservatives at DCC — not Reform. Whatever you think of how that junction turned out — and in my view it made a bad spot worse — it is not the doing of the councillors elected in 2025. That decision belongs to a Labour-led BDC and a Conservative-led DCC.

IS THERE ANYONE ACTUALLY WORKING ON IT?
As part of my FOI, I asked BDC for copies of all correspondence from elected members about these funds. I wanted to find out whether the previous DCC councillor (Christine Dale, Labour) did anything in this case. In reply, BDC sent me nine pages of text. In my circles, something like that is called a ‘wall of text’. All nine pages looked more or less like this:

And among all of those pages is where BDC slipped up a second time. They redacted the names, as you’d expect. My idea was to work out who sent what from the dates and the text itself. So I started reading very carefully — and when I do that, interesting things tend to happen.

On one of the emails, dated 14 April 2026, they left two words unredacted at the bottom: “County Cllr.” Over the years I’ve proven I have a keen eye for detail, so even among nine pages of ‘wall of text’, I spotted that one tiny mistake. That detail was all I needed. Just look, find it yourself:

From there it was easy to work out. Shirebrook & Pleasley ward has exactly one County Councillor. Until May 2025 that seat was held by Christine Dale of Labour. On 1 May 2025 she polled an ironic 666 votes and lost the seat in a landslide to Reform’s Sarah Reaney. So a County Councillor writing about Shirebrook’s S106 money in April 2026 could only be one person — and she isn’t Labour’s.

But I don’t run names on a deduction alone. So I went to the source and asked. I sent an official media enquiry to our County Councillor. Cllr Reaney replied and confirmed to S247 that the correspondence was hers, and added:
“The situation regarding the Shirebrook S106 funds has always been and still is an important line of enquiry that needs taking through to a conclusion. I have put forward alternatives for those funds to BDC for their consideration, as I believe a through road is not what the Town needs when there are other more pressing needs, such as Health and Wellbeing for the residents of Shirebrook.”

WHAT THAT MEANS
Across the nine pages of correspondence BDC holds about this money — on the evidence released to me — the paper trail of any elected member trying to get it spent for the benefit of Shirebrook begins with a single councillor. And it begins in 2026. A full decade after the money arrived.

One councillor from Reform, against 21 from Labour (16 at STC, 4 at BDC and 1 at DCC). If you added in all the Labour members who were elected and then resigned over that period, the comparison would be more like 30 to 1. But let’s stick with 21 — it makes the point well enough. Twenty-one Labour against one Reform, and that single Reform councillor showed more fire and will in the first ten months of her term than 21 Labour councillors managed in TEN YEARS. It’s an outrage.

Labour, and Labour voters — how do you justify that record? Imagine what 21 Reform councillors could do for this town, if one Sarah Reaney has shown more effort and more results in a single year than 21 Labour councillors did in a decade.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
That £569,000 is still there. Labour-led BDC is still clinging to it. The clock to spend it will start when the final home is finished — and once it does, there’ll be precious little time left to plan, consult and commit a sum this size properly. On the evidence I’ve seen, Cllr Sarah Reaney (Reform) is pushing the accelerator, while the groundwork that should have been done years ago — public consultations, feasibility studies, costings — is nowhere on the record. Labour is firmly on break pedal…

On the correspondence released to me, Reaney is the only councillor pushing the issue: sending emails, going to meetings, talking to media and service providers. All I can do at this point is wish her good luck and keep my fingers crossed.

EVIDENCE
I’m putting the evidence in front of you rather than sitting on it. The new councillors on STC — and you, the residents — need to keep the pressure on, so this money is finally spent on Shirebrook before what’s left of its value slips away too.

Cllr Reaney wants to use the money for health and wellbeing, and on one hand I agree with her: Shirebrook is a so-called ‘health desert’ and we badly need that kind of investment. Especially more places for NHS dentist.

On the other hand — this money should be spent turning the southern end of Stinting Lane into a proper, paved, lit, CCTV-secured, A-framed pedestrian connection between Meadow View and the Bracken area. This money came to the town because of investment in the south ward. This money should be spent in the south ward. Full stop.

THE END
How can I be surprised by the lack of imagination from Labour’s leadership in Shirebrook? No matter how hard they fail, they’re rewarded with a supermajority on the council.