[Closed] Whats your local council wasteing money on.............

[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/15/council-loses-dismissal-case-depression ]legal action[/url]

Mine are obsessed with cutting the grass verges. My garden is in a worse state. 😳

Your fanatical compulsion to slag off the public sector really has become a complete obsession - hasn't it project ?

How do you cope with all that anger ?

Or don't you cope ?

Cambridgeshire Guided Busway!

Original estimate was about £120M. It's now up to £150M+.

Originally supposed to be in service April 2009.
Then October 2009.
Then spring 2010.
Then a date would be announced at the end of April 2010.

So right now it's the world's most bizarre cycle track.

Amazing number of people use it though!

Me 😆

[i]So what other councils have been [b]wasteing[/b] cash[/i]

English.

How do you cope with all that anger ?

Project dwells in a bottomless pit of misanthropy. And not only is the pit bottomless, it doesn't have any sides either. If you think think this is bad, just mention Christmas.

I found that they have built a little bmx / pump track in the local park.
I'm happy just need to get down there when the kids are not about

Not my council but a few of my friends from Aberdeen are rather angry by the council's decision to concrete over the city gardens. As I understand it, it's rather under-used and not as pleasant as it could be, so Peacock Arts put forward a proposal that included revamping the gardens along with an arts centre. They got permission for this but the council has changed their mind and decided a plaza would be better.

I know very little about the details of the debate but was helpfully steered towards a (not unbiased) facts table: [url= http://comparethesquare.wordpress.com/ ]Union Terrace Gardens[/url]

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not a councillor who has to make such decisions, and I'm glad I don't live in Aberdeen 😉

removing street furniture so that pedestrians can now cross the road without looking, wherever the f*** the want

I'm impressed none of the edinburgh contingent has mentioned trams. Perhaps they're all stuck in traffic

Diversity training - for every member of staff: lunch included!!!!!!

Mine waste it on free home care for the elderly and disabled, but can't see that lasting too long now.

If enough people post will project explode with rage 😯

I want Project to smell the flowers. I'm stressed, depressed and anxious today, got that slightly electric feeling that I know means any attempt to sleep tonight will be fruitless, and tomorrow I'll be too tired to push anything to the resolution it requires. Its going to be a loooong night of too much to think about and no option to act. But I'm still more cheerful than Project is on any day of the week.

My village parish council has spent £15k fighting a planning application, on flakey grounds & with little consequence for anyone in the long term really. Their charge on the council tax doubled this year, just to pay for that!

1) a hole in the ground
2) trying to demolish a 1930s art deco landmark in favour of "hotel & office space"
3) another hole in the ground

1 - Westfield
2 - The Odeon
3 - Park At The Heart

yes folks I bring you City of Bradford Metropolitan Council

I work in a council who shall remain nameless

coffee + tea + biscuits for 20 people from the staff canteen/building caterers etc for a meeting the other week

!!!!
£45

!!!!!

omg

and they were shite biscuits n all!

Cheshire west, have just moved across the road to a multi million pound office, complete with Hotel and restraunts etc,and sold their old office on paper to a univercity.

Is it not a PFI arrangement they've moved to?

Local authorities are going to go through some hard times (financially due to the new government) over the next few years so hopefully wasteful spending will be minimised.

Removing fly tipping, collecting rubbish, fixing potholes, helping people deal with redundancy, getting kids fostered and adopted, care of the elderly, reducing congestion, educating all the kids in the area, local regeneration, clearing up dog eggs and litter....

coffee + tea + biscuits for 20 people from the staff canteen/building caterers etc for a meeting the other week - £45

Project - what did YOUR councillor say when you complained about how YOUR council was wasting YOUR money? If you want them to do something, not do something or justify something to you then contact your councillor and speak to them - that's how local democracy works

My local council just spunked a load of money of reducing council tax bills.

We're no longer allowed to have biscuits at meetings as a cost saving measure. 🙁

filling in sh1tloads of potholes
some A1 resurfacing going on around here too - Tour of Britain route getting prime asphalt
paying me to train children to ride their bikes safely on the roads

{and 45quid for tea'n'biscuits for 20 people is a sickening £2.25 each - wooeee big deal}

a pump track and dirt jumps about 500yds from my house. w00p!!!!

Round here, it seems the Nimby residents are a big drain. We make rubbish, the landfill is full, we are paying to export said rubbish, they can't find a new landfill (understandable, who wants a landfill site near their village) so they are building an incinerator. I can see it from my house, not that it bothers me much. Be some much needed employment. But all the protesting, miss-informed residents have cost the council several million in legal/defence costs. Its pathetic when most of the houses displaying posters don't even bother using their recycling boxes.

Forgot to say too. If you don't like the answer you get from your councillor, and don't think your friends and neighbours like the answer either then stand as a councillor yourself - if you get elected them you get an even more direct say in what happens. If you don't want to get that involved then ring them up and ask when the next budget consultation meeting is and go along and have your say there.

Probably the least effective way of Influencing the actions of your council is to mumble into your beard on a mountain bike forum

my council is currently sand blasting several street, including mine.
This comes after their attempt in 2005 to demolish the same streets saying they were unfit for human habitation, and were all vacent.

When the residents all turned up to tell the F off, the council quickly backed down (after spending over £1,000,000 on consultancy fees in drawing up the scheme. It was shown their survey report was flawed, cherry picked from a much wider area, and in the 400 houses due to be demolished only 4 were then vacent, with 3 of those being renovated, and the 4th - the occupent had recently died.

So now they wanted to sand blast the fronts, paint the window sills, RWP and soil pipes black, and replace the gutters.

I told them my house was sandblasted before we moved in and therefore didnt need it doing twice, i didnt want my window sills painted, my pipes where already black, and my gutter was perfectly fine, as was the rest of the street. and that really there was better the council could be doing than inconcequental work to private homes.
so in terms of waste - £1m on a daft scheme they couldnt afford to carry out, and the next a £1.2m scheme to carry out unneededasthetic works to private homes.

oh and the council have moved offices several times of the last few years depending on which local landlord is in current favour.

My local pavements were replaced with prettier ones.

They were then immediately dug up for work on services...

Complaining about Councils =/- rocket sceince, and they do do some good work.

Mine are obsessed with cutting the grass verges.

A lot of councils pay the blokes who mow on piece rates. So the verges and parks get mown every 15 minutes. It doesn't change as that means upsetting the union 😀

Mine (Knowsley) had a recent obsession with road cleaning, but as someone pointed out it was close to the end of financial year, so maybe they had a budget to spend:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what-a-waste-of-council-tax-money

Seen a streetsweeper wagon on the estate once since.

the b@stards are educating my children hopefully this will include spelling 🙄 ...the people they employ teachers - every single public sector worker is lazy and causes cancer FACT - I read it in the dail Mail- sometimes buy them ice lollies when it is hot out of their own money...boils my pi55 that [s]my[/s] your taxes are wasted on this kind of cr@p. They are my kids if I cannot afford to dsend them to private school I apologise to you all that you have to subsidise the seeds of my loins.

A lot of councils pay the blokes who mow on piece rates

Some good responces there, about the blatant waste of cash, and some rather silly frivolous responces, but in the end we all pay for council waste and in efficency.

Strangely yje councils have a duty under law to maintain and keep the roads clear, they dont need new offices,new desks and car parks dedicated to them selves,theyre just empire building at the cost to us the council tax payer.

Cheshire west, have just moved across the road to a multi million pound office, complete with Hotel and restraunts etc,and sold their old office on paper to a univercity.

So what other councils have been wasteing cash,not fixing the roads it appears

restraunts
univercity
wasteing

3 spelling mistakes.....

It seems your local council are doing rather well and have identified the need to spend more on their residents’ education! 😯

Ooh, another one in defence of the council. They started to build a small pedestrian refuge on the main road just round the corner. Residents complained as council had forgotten to dot the i's or something on their plans, and an elderly lady complained that her taxi now had to stop outside her neighbours house rather than at her doorstep as otherwise it blocked the traffic.

So the island got flattened (it was only and 1x2 metres) and then the following year someone got killed as they crossed the road in the same place. Blind dips at both ends of the road with three side roads so if you can't jog across you just cross your fingers.

Swindon. enough said really.

My Council's saving an estimated 200 million in the next three years, whilst still managing the list of activities mentioned by richcc.

I think they're doing rather well, actually. Not an easy time for local bodies at the moment.

On the local radio station yesterday they were celebrating that Leeds City Council had won an award at the Chelsea Flower Show for their show garden...WTF?!

It appears one of my local ones wants to build a velodrome...

Damn them and their plans to make me spend even more money and buy a track bike!

Seems as if somebody has set up aweb site about council waste, thanks to who ever sent me the link.

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/home/

"somebody"

Taxpayers alliance

A fairly mad bunch of little englander right wing loonies. Closely linked to the tory party.

no TJ too right wing/Euro sceptic for the Tories

Andrew [chair and founder]led the student Conservative groups both in Imperial College and across London and sat on the national committee of the student wing of the party.....From 1998 to 2002 Andrew served as a Conservative member of Westminster City Council. He left the party in 2003, having lost faith that it represented his brand of free market, individualist and compassionate politics

Do they have a forum? perhas you could join it and meet like minded individuals ?

woking bc:

this:

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they sub part of the running costs for something no-one goes to... if you wnat art, hop on the train and in 25mins you are in london..

[img] [/img] meant to be light and airy...

but is dark and a covered hangout for chav's to drink under
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

BUT as a cycling town they are doing quite a bit for bikes etc

[img] [/img]

See that green light sabre?

That flashes green all the time and is very close to traffic lights on a busy, multi-lane one way system. Genius!

It cost us £60,000...

Some part of my post clearly didn't get through.

More 'democracy 101'

Councillors are YOUR elected representatives, to a large extent they tell the council WHAT to do, the Chief Exec and Council Officers then decide HOW to do that most efficiently and effectively. If you don't like WHAT they are doing (building a big green flashing c0ck beside a river, for instance) then tell your councillor or stand against them. Councillors mostly want to be loved (and re-elected), if you point out to them that what they are doing with your money isn't going to get them re-elected then you'll be able to influence them.

Not where I live but where I work the council have decided to spend many hundred thousand pounds and numerous months replacing perfectly acceptable pavements around a distinctly teriary shopping parade with much much nicer block paving and dreamy smooth tarmac. Haven't a clue why, the old stuff was fine and would have lasted for years.

Evidence as I call BS

A council had some environmental advice, part of which was to cut the grass less often on verges. This caused great consternation with the grass cutting men, who were losing wages, so ultimately a relatively simple recommendation created a situation where an entire new incentive system had to be worked out. This was given as an example in a lecture by someone who was there.

I don't think this situation has been described in any peer reviewed journals or newspapers though, which is scandalous, given the importance of small scale pay disputes in local councils.

[url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8284533.stm ]A guide to help the over 50s enjoy a bit of how's your father.[/url]

Still not convinced but I admire your sarcastic tone 😆

miaowing_kat - Member
Not my council but a few of my friends from Aberdeen are rather angry by the council's decision to concrete over the city gardens.

Yeah I live in Aberdeen and this is a complete disgrace......as you can imagine £120M buys a hell of a lot of slabs (and friends!)!

[url= http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1750197 ]http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1750197[/url]

richcc - Member
Some part of my post clearly didn't get through.

More 'democracy 101'

Councillors are YOUR elected representatives, to a large extent they tell the council WHAT to do, the Chief Exec and Council Officers then decide HOW to do that most efficiently and effectively. If you don't like WHAT they are doing (building a big green flashing c0ck beside a river, for instance) then tell your councillor or stand against them. Councillors mostly want to be loved (and re-elected), if you point out to them that what they are doing with your money isn't going to get them re-elected then you'll be able to influence them.

+1

Many council's are run like mini parliaments. They often even have councillors with portfolio's such as envirnoment, community etc. These same councillors also represent a particular ward within that council boundary.

Local councillors (the ones that people voted for) decide policy and practice then this goes to the council (the ones you are moaning about) to do that.

Within that there is a scrutiny panel of councillors that work cross party that act as a check and balance. They are often seeking public say and involvement.

There is also area committees or forums (Real ones not internet based) that councillors attend that listen to the views of local people and discuss problems and solutions in that area. You are often invited to these meetings and you are able to see the minutes and agenda's usually up on the website. These (and you) often have powers to change things locally.

They will also more than likely have a citizens panel for the public to act like a focus group and on top of that invite comments and consultation on many things.

Few links for the genuinly interested

http://openlylocal.com/

My Council

http://openlylocal.com/councils/71-Leeds-City-Council

Consultations

https://consult.leeds.gov.uk/leeds/kms/dmart.aspx?LoggingIn=tempVar&noip=1&filter_status=1

Problem is that the council invites comments and feedback and generally gets a lot of winging after the fact. If you have a gripe get involved and change it.

Anyway rant over, back to work.

oh and interesting that the government waste money (not Whitehall) but the council waste money (not the councillors)

We had comments on one of our online consultations which asked for views on certain plans complaining that they hadn't been consulted!

@richcc - in the case of the Cambs Guided Bus, *lots* of people wrote and complained, went to public meetings, complained some more, and who knows what else.

The county council still went ahead and built the thing, and it's sat there like some great grey slug right now, with no prospect of being opened any time soon, since the council don't have the requisite £30-40M needed to pay the contractors for the extra (disputed) work.

So they're going to fight it out in court for the next few years.

My point? Sometimes there's just an inevitability about these things that can't be stopped. The council is going to spend a ton of money on something useless and no power on earth can stop them.

Guided busway why not just cal it a bus lane and paint white lines a lot cheaper,than concrete troughs.

Oversized firestations...occupying a phenomenal amount of land.

Occupied with some of the lowest mileaged fleet in the world!

I thought the Cambridge guided busway was mostly funded by central govt, (ie all of us via tax).
Like most people, the councillors like spending money, especially when it's not their own, so it was always going to be built, whatever the objections.
Now they're getting a bit worried because of the cost overrun. That isn't going to come from central govt. so it will drag out for years in the courts.
(But is is a very good cycle track, so long as you don't fall down the gap in the middle.)

We're getting this to replace the current skate park
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Not my local council, but a neighbouring one:

http://www.dreamsthelens.com/site.do

Was "sold" to the local population as overlooking St Helens, sadly the face looks south over Cheshire & Widnes..........and can't really be seen from many places in St Helens, only if you drive past on the M62.

The reclaimed land is turning into a nice little playground for short evening rides though, so that's a bonus!

My old council at Sunderland has just spent £70,000 putting some concrete blocks into a playpark for the kids to play on, replacing the more traditional swings etc. - they looked like a fractured skull waiting to happen.

[img] [/img]

After complaints they've been removed.

Temporary bride spanning the weak one at t'bottom of our road.
Been there years now - so long the rental on the temporary one has, apparently, outstripped cost to repair the 'weak' one...

Probably best not mention the George Square redevelopment in town centre Hudds either....

Still, at least they did not quite run out of grit when needed, they are pretty good at that round 'ere.....

Anybody got a council that are anywhere near providing the Sustrans multi-user routes that they outlined in the local plan?

project - Member

Strangely yje councils have a duty under law to maintain and keep the roads clear, they dont need new offices,new desks and car parks dedicated to them selves,theyre just empire building at the cost to us the council tax payer.

Project, you forgot to mention that your council sold their old HQ to the Univercity of Chester so that the univercity can house the new faculties of education and children’s services and health and social care.

So that means [u]EVEN MORE[/u] teachers and social workers !!!!!!

Knowing just how much you despise teachers and social workers project, you must be absolutely incandescent with rage - at the thought of all this helping to train more teachers and social workers.

In fact, I can pick up strange distant rumblings here in South London.

@richmars

I thought the Cambridge guided busway was mostly funded by central govt, (ie all of us via tax).

Wikipedia says not. £98M from central govt. Another £17M was supposed to come from developers, but they've all gone into hiding. So the council has had to borrow *£60M* to cover the shortfall, and is presumably hoping to recover some of it from BAM Nuttall by arguing about cost overruns and the like in court.

Could pay quite a few teachers with the interest on £60M, even in these days of artificially low interest rates.

Although in practice there's no way they'd spend that on teachers - it would go on digging up bridleways for no good reason whatsoever.....

(But is is a very good cycle track, so long as you don't fall down the gap in the middle.)

It's a *rubbish* cycle track, because no-one can agree which side they should cycle on. If you go down it at rush hour you have to keep getting on and off it 🙂

My local council is wasting money on festival's celebrating hetrosexuality.

Its disgusting, couples, men gyrating and pointing towards females with alot of promiscuous sex in a unsafe environment.

Ernie i do so love your instinctive understanding of myself.

i do so love your instinctive understanding of myself

No, I don't rely on "instinct".

I find that you provide me with all the necessary information with your regular rants concerning public sector workers in general, and teachers and social workers in particular.

Yes, I hear you and understand you.............no great mystery really.

i am both a social worker and a teacher
BBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNTTTTTTT

[img] [/img]

I dont practice either anymore the shame of helping people improve their lives was too much for me to bear

Junkyard, 🙂

Not my local council but favourite waste of space and money is Barnard Castle Vision guided by a thousand voices (apparently) whilst not really listening to them. At the moment its working its way through five million on visionary schemes for the town. Whilst all the locals want is the toilets refurbished.

Seems to be a case of lunatics have visions whilst real visionaries have dreams.

i am both a social worker and a teacher

[i]And[/i] you read the Guardian........................ffs 😐

😆 at you both

Is it not a PFI arrangement they've moved to?

what? everything!! its all about the juicy pensions, long term sick, quangos, courses, conventions and information gathering, isn't the public sector mostly there to reduce unemployment now? they spend our money so we can earn money so they can tax us to spend it so we can earn it!!! haha thanks how can we have been so stupid spend away dynamic go getting business crusaders of the public sector, thanks for saving our economic bacon, your not underperformers at all!! 😈

You read the Guardian? I know someone very senior up the ladder there.....and yes I am royally a windup to this poor person (who gets v.angry)...... 🙂

my local council just spent 14million on roadworks for bendy buses!!! Swansea is not that big a city and the buses are now mostly empty. what gets me though is that the council have payed for the infrastructure so a private company can profit (1.20 for a ticket 1/3 of a mile ?????)
the city is now a nasty, slow, useless, one way system that directs traffic through the city-centre or around a maze of residential streets.

You read the Guardian?