The Next Great Political Scandals

[Protheroe]

I've mentioned a few times on here the race by local authorities to "supplement their income" by using the Public Works Loan Board to obtain cheap finance to invest in some awful shopping centre or "enabling development" sold to them by some charlatan developer or investment agent. Croydon Council already went bankrupt because of property deals, and there will be more as interest rates rise.

Picked up this today from one of my favourite authors in my field, which is on a truly incredible scale:
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/st...as-it-gone

Read it and weep. We'll be picking up the tab for stuff like this for decades to come.

[TTM2]

Read into Croydon Council buying a huge hotel that quickly went bust. They managed to buck the property price trend in London and sold it for £25m, £5m less than they paid for it 4 years ago. 


I booked in there just before and walked out after 20 minutes.

[SophLad]

Kidderminister did one of these. Bought up a shopping centre which is, by all accounts, dead after the same council approved an out of town retail park.

[Protheroe]

Indeed Soph. Wyre Forest District Council are always finding new and exciting ways to waste taxpayers money.

Here they are rejecting a housing development on a site they'd only just released from the Green Belt in their latest Local Plan; they have no defence to an Appeal by my mates at Richborough, and will have to bear the costs of that Appeal when they lose - never mind the futile work the officers will have to put in.
https://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/n...-rejected/

[SophLad]

Whilst that stretch of land, with its poppy field, is beautiful - the site itself has been an eyesore for years, even prior to its conscious neglect.

[baggy1]

Some of the completely unqualified and over promoted individuals that end up as Treasurers for county and district councils defies belief. I remember one particular knob at one of the CCs that I was at, he spent more time having his midlife crisis and hitting on my missus (and any other female that came within 10 feet of him) than looking after the funds for the county. He was also a member of the local Freemasons and Conservative Party which he felt made him untouchable. 

A real example of 'pay peanuts, get monkeys' - I can imagine he is replicated throughout the country and there is the need to spice up their otherwise dull life by making important decisions with someone else's money.

[Protheroe]

He was also a member of the local Freemasons and Conservative Party which he felt made him untouchable. 

Fuck me, that's why Gary Sambrook is untouchable then.