Bolsover District Council DEBT
How much debt does BDC have? £1 million? £5 million? Maybe £10 million? Or maybe £50 million? You don’t know? Don’t worry. You’re in excellent company. Almost nobody does. I didn’t either.
What I do know is this: when Labour goes quiet about something, in my experience it’s because there’s something they’d rather you didn’t see. Watch the social media account of the BDC Leader (Labour, of course) closely and you’ll notice it’s full of photo ops and vanilla posts, with comments usually blocked and never, ever any detail. Especially about money.
So I set myself a new mission: to find out what financial state BDC is really in.
THE RABBIT HOLE
If you’ve ever visited the BDC website, you’ll know that finding anything there is a lottery and a road through hell. On top of that, the BDC website blocks AI tools on many of its pages, so you can’t use modern, time-saving tools to pull out the information you’re looking for. You have to waste a ton of time and dig it out by hand. It’s frustrating, and in my view it fits the Labour pattern perfectly: when everything is broken, everything stays buried.
Luckily, after a good few hours, I found some rather shocking facts. According to BDC’s own treasury management reports, by 31 March 2024 the council still owed around £86 million to the Public Works Loan Board, the Government’s lending arm for councils. £86,000,000.
EIGHTY-SIX. MILLION. POUNDS.
That’s more than £1,000 for every man, woman and child in the district. The interest alone cost £3.09 million in 2023/24. That’s about £8,500 a day. Every day. Weekends and bank holidays included.
BDC repaid £3.4 million in 2023/24. At that pace, the rest gets paid off in roughly 25 years. Today’s kids will be paying council tax towards it with their own children in tow.
Labour isn’t talking about it. And with reorganisation paused, the question is simple: when BDC eventually disappears into a new northern Derbyshire super-council, who picks up the tab?
Spoiler: you do.
RUMOURS
There’s a rumour doing the rounds in Derbyshire’s political corridors: if reorganisation goes ahead, the new council will start life with a billion pounds of debt on its books (the combined debt of all the councils being merged). I’ve heard it from few sources, but confirming it would mean going through the books of every single council in the county. I’m a working man and I don’t have the time to do it. But I believe it. That figure is entirely believable.
REORGANISATION OR DISORGANISATION?
Some say the Government paused reorganisation because, according to the polls, Labour would lose every election that came with it. So, suddenly, reorganisation turned into disorganisation. Labour is good at it. We already lost money of preparation, but that is nothing for Labour- they will get that back by raising your taxes.
Other commentators point out that the newly created councils would be so buried in debt that the only way out would be huge council tax rises. Government prefer to monopolise tax rises and don’t need competition- that could tip the scale, so… that ‘postponed’ the election.
There are also a lot of people claiming that reorganisation wouldn’t save a penny. Quite the opposite: it would cost enormous sums. I’ve heard £80 million, though that’s unconfirmed. Still- I believe it would cost a lot of money in short term. And short term under Labour means crash in long term.
Either way, most, if not all, of the districts that would form the new council carry debt. Some more, some less, but the result would be the same: a new council born up to its ears in debt.
DEBTS MUST BE REPAID – I KNOW: ITS RADICAL MOTION.
These days we’ve got used to ever-growing debt. It won’t end well. Sooner or later someone will ask for the bill, and the whole house of cards will come down. The Uniparty doesn’t care. We know that already: whether it’s Labour or the Conservatives at the helm, debt grows, immigration grows and infrastructure crumbles.
That doesn’t change the fact that gilt yields are rising and are already higher than they were under Liz Truss. Labour, once again, is wrecking the economy while the mainstream media pretends all is well. They’ll keep dancing until the last song of the ball, just like in 2008.
Someone has to repay the debts the Uniparty has run up. At Derbyshire County Council, Reform inherited a debt of around £450 million from the Conservatives and has cut it by roughly £30 million since taking control. We’ll have to wait for the exact figures, but one thing is already plain as day: debt is easy to run up and very hard to pay off. Just look at history of STC with debt:
https://shirebrook247.com/2022/01/31/me-what-with-debt-chair-im-closing-the-meeting/
TIME FOR BDC
You may wonder why I’ve turned my attention to BDC. Well, to me it looks like STC, under Andrew Stevens and his merry band of Reformers, is turning the corner whikle Im waiting for interview with Labour leader…
New councillors make mistakes. Sometimes they focus on the wrong things. They’re adorably politically inexperienced and sometimes do what Labour tell them to do. They are still under Labour leader for some reason. But they work hard. They show up. They look under every stone. I can see that, and there isn’t much more for me to do there right now.
HISTORY IS CHANGE BY PEOPLE WHO SHOW UP
Maybe I’m blowing my own trumpet, but I feel this monumental change is partly down to the work I’ve done over the last few years. I show up, I pressed, I showed to others what is going on and finally- other joined and forced the change. That’s why I’m turning towards BDC now. Dont worry- I won’t abandon STC. If I see bad things there, I’ll still point and shout. But STC isn’t the problem now. BDC is.
Yet another HMO approved in Shirebrook- by Labour votes. A council drowning in debt- by Labour. A council refusing to say how many illegal immigrants have been planted in council houses across the district. A Leader playing politician rather than working for her own town. That must change. I forced change at STC, and I’ll do it at BDC. If you want to help me- like and share links on Facebook, read my articles and most of all- VOTE in elections! Don’t allow Labour to take over this town again just by inactivity. I bielive in change. You should too.
And if you’re a hardcore document reader, check BDC’s financial data for yourself. Don’t take my word for it:
Treasury Management Outturn 2023/24:
https://committees.bolsover.gov.uk/documents/s22871/Outturn+App+6+TM+23+24.pdf
Capital Strategy 2021/22 to 2024/25:
https://committees.bolsover.gov.uk/documents/s9905/Capital%20Strategy%20202122%20-%20202425.pdf
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
Lead picture made with Midjourney
