What is our Council doing?

The last couple of days have revealed that Woking Borough Council, already saddled with heavy debts, has bought Wolsey place shopping centre.

The cost of this purchase will be huge. Shops are already moving out of the town centre, in part thanks to the Council’s previous decision to move the market, but also because of general economic conditions in Britain and the world more widely.

Given that the council is in debt, it needs to stabilise its finances. But it seems funny that they want to do this based on huge, long term capital spending projects.

Because of the opaque and unaccountable way that this decision has been taken, opposition parties have not been able to get a grasp of the figures needed to supervise this gigantic purchase, or therefore to decide whether they are for or against it. The council as it stands is composed of Tories and Lib Dems, with one independent. Even the Liberal Democrats are complaining that they haven’t been given the information to take a proper decision.

This also applies to Labour.

Every time the council does something vaguely controversial, especially when decisions are stitched up, the Chief Executive (i.e. head ‘civil servant’) Mr Morgan, is wheeled out to make a statement. It is time for his elected bosses to be opened up to the public scrutiny they have hitherto pinned on somebody that we the public cannot get rid of, or directly supervise.