Thank you Madam Mayor
Firstly may I thank the S151 Officer and Interim Chief Executive, and indeed all our staff, for their efforts in these very difficult times, with the issuing of what seems to be the first of many S114 notices.
And we must be very clear that this is not covid related, the financial problems of this Council pre date covid and have been going wrong for ‘some years’. If the issues were covid related then the S151 officer would not have been able to issue a S114 notice under the amended guidance.
So, we find ourselves, as a Council, meeting to discuss how this Labour Council has bankrupted our borough.
Sadly, it did not need to be this way, as it was the choices of this failing Labour Council that has brought us to this point.
Those choices are clearly well known with the £1.5bn debt mountain, £250mn loaned to Brick x Brick, reserves at a derisory £7mn, and if only you had not squandered the opportunity that Westfield offered, with the increased business rates that would have been generated as well as bringing jobs and homes to the borough.
And yet tonight we have seen Labour Cllrs. revert to form in blaming the Government for 10 years of austerity. Every local authority up and down this country has faced the same challenges, yet you are the only authority that is bankrupt and will be issuing repeated S114 notices.
Repeated Cabinet Members thinks this Conservative Group should take responsibility.
Well when in office we certainly did.
From 2006 to 2014 we managed through the crash and the financial realities that followed.
Yet we delivered balanced budgets, and indeed a £2.6mn surplus in 2014. Money that Labour splashed on their choices rather than putting to reserves.
Labour were sorry for a while but increasingly they are resorting to the blame game.
As an Opposition we have always challenged your decisions:-
challenged Brick X Brick;
challenged the purchase of hotels;
challenged your yearly budget overspends.
You’ve had the challenge and failed it - repeatedly.
Even in September this year you agreed an emergency budget, which you have already failed to meet and the position has indeed worsened.
With the black hole for this year now sitting at £67mn, with £37mn coming as a direct result of your wholly owned developer Brick x Brick failing to pay their interest due or their projected dividends.
Dividends that Cllr. Hall regularly told us were coming.
Repeatedly we hear that there was a lack of pace, urgency and radical options. Sadly that position remains.
This labour Council
lacks pace,
lacks urgency,
lacks options
and most importantly lacks the ability to change.
When Cllr. Paul Scott speaks tonight to effectively support their failed developer Brick x Brick you know that they have collectively learnt nothing.
The same team that brought the borough to bankruptcy are now being relied upon to somehow have the answers. The same people that sat in Cabinet and approved the choices that brought us here, without question or challenge, now feel they are able to pull a rabbit from the hat.
You have proved beyond reasonable doubt that you are not capable of running this borough.
Do not expect us to support your failure.
Croydon deserves better.
