New Waste Botch at Waverley (South West Surrey Liberal Democrats)

South West Surrey Liberal Democrats <info@swsurreylibdems.org.uk>

New Waste Botch at Waverley

May 21, 2002 12:00 AM

CONSERVATIVE councillors running Waverley Borough Council are facing new allegations of waste over another botched scheme.

In the face of public outrage they tried to pull off a plan that could have led to the demolition of one of the Borough's top heritage sites - Brightwell's House in Farnham.

Tens of thousands of pounds are believed to have been wasted. This follows the waste of half a million pounds, spent in vain on another failed Conservative 'big-idea'. They tried to sell-off the Borough's 5,500 council houses. They spent half-a-million pounds on propaganda, only to see the whole idea fall at the first major hurdle.

The Conservatives were criticised for ignoring the advice of those who said it would fail. The Liberal Democrats had opposed the sell-off bid, wanting the money to be used on local services instead. LibDem leader at Waverley, Councillor Chris Slyfield, said that the money wasted on the sell-off bid represented "nine percent in council tax". In other words, local people are paying almost a tenth of their council tax just to pay for Conservative waste.

The latest scandal has back-fired even more than the earlier banana skins. Brightwell's House in Farnham is a listed building and part of the local heritage. The Tories wanted it de-listed to ease the way for demolition, even though such an idea was bitterly opposed throughout Farnham. In the end, the official body responsible for deciding about the listed status of buildings, boosted the amount of protection for Brightwell's House.

This means that Conservative councillors have spent public money pursuing an aim nobody supported and ended up with the opposite result. Councillor Slyfield has challenged the Conservatives to say how much was wasted on the Brightwell's fiasco, but they have failed to make the figure public - estimates put it at tens of thousands of pounds.