Letter due to an £1.8 M Black hole

This letter is due to two Staple Tye Councillors being also responsible for running this town.
Are we going to have service cuts?
Are we going to have less money to do things in Staple Tye due to this error?

Dear Sir



As a Harlow Councillor I am still in shock at the news that our Labour-Liberal Democrat Administration has managed to run up a £1.8 million deficit in their 2007/8 budget without realising it.



Last Thursday the Joint Leaders of the Council took a bloody nose for the fact that this should have been known long ago and residents could be facing cuts in services.



Labour’s previous Leader, Councillor Kevin Brooks, was right to say he had grave concerns that the Budget Working Group had not met for a year.



From out of the mouth of one of their own most prominent members comes proof that this administration has been negligent. It must be a bitter consolation for Councillor Brooks to leave us in January knowing that he has been proved right, but in doing so he has condemned his own side.



Yet what did we hear from his colleagues he leaves to lead us? Their new leader, Councillor Durcan, was heard to say, “I’m bored,” while forced to listen to his shortcomings at the Council meeting last Thursday. Then he too refused an apology to Harlow’s residents and taxpayers, just as his Liberal Democrat partners had refused to apologise over the closure of Harlow Pool.



Well, just as Conservatives had to apologise for the Pool closure, I am prepared to do what Councillor Durcan finds himself unable to do, and apologise to our residents and taxpayers for this series of disasters once again enveloping the tragedy that is Harlow Council.



Apart from that, all I can say to residents is what Conservatives in Harlow have been saying for the last ten years, the answer is in your hands, and will be again at the ballot boxes next May.



Yours truly,


Lee Dangerfield
Councillor Staple tye