Stop wasting public money on Wallasey town hall
It’s like taking out a huge mortgage to build two new spacious homes and then staying in an expensive hotel, hours away
Of course we take health and safety seriously. We’ve just approved a policy on it, and its integrated to our culture. To allege otherwise is an unreasonable smear. If you have serious complaints then by all means raise a standards complaint. If you’re saying that factions or political parties have encouraged unreasonable behavior by members of the public, holding politicians to account for their actions.
The scale of the problem needs to be put in perspective. There was disruption. There were no arrests, no charges, there was no brick through an office window. There’s been no assessment shown to councillors.
I don’t accept there is any significant difference in managing health and safety between this room in Wallasey town hall and the equivalent committee room in Birkenhead town hall. As Cllr Gorman said, the Council chamber in both places have separate balconies where the public can be separated from councillors, if needed. We haven’t had an explanation about that, though I appreciate its to come.
But apparently, Wirral Council can afford these things, even though yesterday we were told we couldn’t afford the Maritime Knowledge Hub. [And the Council is already over spending its budget by £12m since April.]
But the Council can afford:
Up to £100,000 to move
£400,000 per year of savings have been forfeited
Its proposed here for another £400,000 for another report
£150k to £300,000 for repairs and renovations this year, and
the report also mentions £6 million maybe double to £12 million to renovate Wallasey town hall in the next few years.
We are already paying, as a Council, for Mallory and Irvine. Two lovely, brilliant, ‘A’ rated, modern office buildings [in Birkenhead town centre]. We are already paying for that, at a cost to the Council tax payer of £2 million a year. That’s £5,500 every day. We are already paying for it. Lets use it.
Most of those two office blocks are empty. Locating in Birkenhead town centre would reduce the barriers to participation by the public. It would halve the journey time by public transport.
We need to stop navel gazing really. We need to stop wasting money on ourselves and provide a long-term solution that brings civic services into the heart of the community we serve, at a cost we can afford.
There are other alternatives solutions. We’d like equal consideration to be given to Wallasey and Birkenhead town halls and moving Council and committee meetings to the Mallory and Irvine Buildings.
There’s an analogy I’d like to use.
It’s like taking out a huge mortgage to build two new homes. Lovely, spacious homes within half an hour travel to where you work every week. One home to live in, one to rent out.
But instead of moving in to the new home, you then max out your credit card by staying in an expensive, dysfunctional, mothballed, old hotel, two hours commute away from where you work. AND you don’t find any paying tenants for the extra home that you build to rent out.