Green light for £2 million South Park folly?

If you’ve received your Cheshire East Council Tax bill you may have noticed that the Macclesfield Town Council precept has increased by 24%.

If you think that’s bad news read on.

The precept increase indicates that the consultation over Macclesfield South Park pavilion has been completed – and we have to assume that fewer residents opposed the scheme than voted for it.

Each year the Police & Crime Commissioner undertakes a consultation. You’re probably unaware of this – as it’s strictly online – and as most of Cheshire’s one million residents don’t make a habit of checking these things online the resulting increase always goes to the circa 2,000 who actually approve the annual increase.

Now, bearing in mind that Cheshire Police employ just over 2,000 police officers, 220 police community support officers and 1,464 civilian police staff – all hankering after more money – it’s highly unlikely the vote could ever be in the form of a rejection.

Last year around 3,000 Cheshire residents heard of the consultation and bothered to vote, of these just 1,000 rejected the proposed increase. That’s out of a potential 1,000,000 Cheshire residents.

We’ve yet to speak to anyone who heard about the Macclesfield Town Council’s South Park consultation,  by post or direct contact, so have to assume the numbers who actually voted were miniscule.

So, it would appear that Macclesfield Town Council have our approval for raising a £1.25 million loan to construct a circa £2 million building that will be paid for, via a mortgage, over the next 40 years.

Your children will be paying for it and possibly even their children.

The council have assured us that the mortgage will be paid for via the precept Cheshire East Council already receives from us – which is all fine and dandy if that precept continues to roll in.

But what the councillors seem to be oblivious to is that Cheshire East, to alleviate their own £18.7 million overspend, is considering withholding (or reclaiming) a portion of the Macclesfield Town Council precept.

Debt-ridden Cheshire East are having to look at a host of unpopular initiatives to clear the £18.7 million black hole they have created.

Measures include closing school kitchens, halting school meal provision entirely and transferring ownership – and thus liability – for some of its leisure centres.

If Cheshire East do end up withholding a proportion of the precept, where do you imagine Macclesfield Town Council will secure the necessary funds for mortgage repayment?

You might have thought, seeing the financial profligacy of Cheshire East in such difficult times, would have served as a warning and have encouraged our own town council to exercise a little caution – evidently far from it.

One thing we can guarantee, the £2 million café and meeting room will never, ever make money, so will end up costing us all dearly – and you can take that to the bank!