Loan scheme is plain crazy
THERE are many oddities about the workings of central government.
But the news that Barrow Council must take a loan from a government body, to pay a sum of cash it owes to none other than the government, is plain crazy.
Someone, somewhere, is being paid to come up with such crazy solutions.
And it is an absolute outrage. The fact Barrow has historically done badly out of the housing revenue account is bad enough, when other towns and cities prosper under the very same scheme.
That it is being forced to plunge almost £50 million into the red to service central government’s debt, is off the scale of stupidity.
In some ways, the new scheme makes sense.
But something is seriously wrong when a council must pay up front, what it will earn over the next 30 years.
How on earth is this fair? How does it help a town with some of the most deprived wards in the country at a time when the UK is on its knees financially.
The scheme, and the way it works is fatally flawed.
It maybe that the boundaries are immoveable. And it may be that representations have already been made.
But let’s not tumble into record levels of debt.
We should be fighting this, not simply taking it on the chin.
Published: December 16, 2011
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