30 Aug 2024
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and in the wake of SADC leader Paul de Kort’s recent interview with this publication, local Conservatives have rebutted comments about the financial woes of the Liberal Democrat administration.
St Albans Liberal Democrats demonstrate that they follow in their party’s time-honoured tradition of always blaming everyone else. Ed Davey said he was ‘misled’ by his officials over his scandalous treatment of the sub-postmasters when he refused to talk to them.
Local Lib Dems say that that their inability to balance the books is all the Conservatives’ fault. This is despite there being only three Conservative councillors compared to a whopping 47 Liberal Democrats, and the Liberal Democrats having been in power for over five years.
They complain that the Conservative Government constrained their ability to raise Council Tax.
Teresa Heritage, the current Conservative Group leader on the district council said: “There is a case to be made for allowing some councils to raise taxes at above inflation levels. However, that case is predominantly for councils who have responsibility for adult social care and for highways, where demographic change, an ageing population and the need to maintain ageing infrastructure is costly.
“In our area, that is the county not the district council. In our view, the district council cannot simply pick residents’ pockets to pay for their political posturing and the big commercial mistakes they have made.”
So why are the finances so bad?
In last week’s article, Cllr de Kort claims the finances of the council were left in disarray by the Conservatives and that is why they are having issues five years on. Of course, he only became a district councillor two years after the Liberal Democrats took over the council.
The Conservatives say that the council was well managed financially under their administration. So well run, that we did not need to increase Council Taxes for eight years.
We made operations more efficient and increased revenues from leisure services and recycling (becoming one of the country’s top performers in the process).
Some service areas always made a loss. For example, in parking, planning and licencing, the council has statutory duties it needs to perform, and these operate as cost centres. Council Tax is charged to pay for these.
Year after year, the Conservatives balanced the budget.
At the same time, we knew the importance of saving for a rainy day and when we handed over the administration to the Liberal Democrats over five years ago, there were significant reserves of £31.6m. This was up from the £18 million at the end of 2012, the year we took over the council from the Liberal Democrats.
Every year we produced a five-year and a ten-year plan, which was discussed and debated with all councillors so there were never any financial surprises or shocks.
In 2018/19, we looked forward to 2024 and beyond. It was well documented that the major risks were commercial projects. It was critical to deliver two key projects on time and to budget or there would be severe budget gaps. The first was Jubilee Square and the second was the Harpenden Public Halls project.
We were confident of delivering them as our track record in this area was good. After all, this team had delivered the new Batchwood centre, Cotlandswick and St Albans leisure centres, plus the new St Albans Museum + Gallery.
These two projects were developed to underpin our future finances and any delays or profit shortfalls on either of them would significantly impact the council budget. We highlighted them as high risk/high impact projects, which meant they had to be carefully managed and monitored.
So, what went wrong?
Mary Maynard, who was leader of the Conservatives at the district council for the first two years of the Liberal Democrat administration said: “I was astonished and dismayed by what the Liberal Democrats did in their first two years in power. They knew that two key commercial projects in the pipeline were crucial to future budgets.
“Their leader had been chair of the audit committee, their councillors were represented on the committee that looked at the long-term financial plans, so they had access to all the work that had been done. They were also aware that the Conservative administration kept a tight rein on service delivery and costs at the council, for example, no new spend was allowed unless budget could be released by reducing costs somewhere else.
“However, they had always been dismissive of the Conservative administration’s project and financial discipline, and it went out of the window the minute they took power. Conservative councillors could see their actions were piling up long-term problems for the council, but when we started to comment on this, information was withheld, and we were ignored or attacked. It got so bad, all of our councillors on the audit committee resigned.
“At the time, we thought they were making three serious mistakes, which would have significant financial impact.
“The first was to cancel the Jubilee Square project and start again from scratch. This added years to the development timescales, increased costs by £10M, and meant revenue, which was supposed to start in 2022/3, was delayed till 2024/5. They then did the same on the Harpenden Public Halls project, which is still in stasis five years later.
“They wanted ‘beautiful’ statement buildings acting as lasting legacies in the built environment in the centre of both St Albans and Harpenden. A great concept, if you can afford it and have the skills needed to deliver it. They couldn’t and didn’t.
“Hubris, as both buildings are now planned to be used for social housing with a much lower financial return, their decisions driven by their desperation for cash, but exacerbating the budget gap.
“Five years ago, they knew delaying these projects would lead to financial gaps, and to plug these, they then made their second mistake and decided to become commercial property landlords. They unsuccessfully tried to buy up half of Harpenden High Street, wasting nearly £200K of reserves in the process, then bought Lockey House in St Albans for £6.6m, just at the beginning of a collapse of commercial property values, a slowdown in commercial letting, and the consequent drop in achievable rents, which we had warned them was coming. They thus added to their financial woes.
“Their third mistake was in ‘losing’ the highly experienced officers, who were crucial to the success of the commercial development programme, having initially diverted them off these key projects to work on their new commercial aspirations. In fact, most of the xouncil’s senior managers left in the first few years of their ‘rule’, meaning a lot of knowledge and experience walked out of the door.
“They weren’t focussing on what really mattered, quickly finishing the commercial/residential property projects to deliver income in a timely manner while keeping a tight grip on spend, instead in that first two years, they indulged in political pet projects.
“They re-organised how the council was run, moving to a model with infrequent meetings. This meant decision-making slowed down and no one councillor took responsibility for anything.
“They put huge efforts into changes that would make little bottom-line impact, like the Charter Market.
“They failed to realise that a lot of its costs were general council overhead and if these were not charged to the market, they would just go somewhere else. (A lot of this overhead cost appears to now be charged to parking.).
“They pushed to close roads (St Albans’ High Street) and reduce speed limits, which wasted huge amounts of time, was deeply unpopular, delivered no financial benefits and wasn’t even a district council responsibility. They wasted money and time on internal culture change projects, which only led to poorer service delivery.
“It was obvious years ago that their actions would ultimately lead to a financial meltdown. It’s a pity that the price for this will be paid by us all as residents of the district. Their attempts to blame everyone but themselves for their mistakes are pitiable. If they had listened then, they wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
Cllr Heritage added: “The district council effectively runs planning, grants licences, runs a few green spaces, some leisure facilities and the Charter Market, keeps the streets clean, collects rubbish and manages parking. The Liberal Democrats are failing in most of these areas.
”Planning was put in special measures as they are unable to process planning applications on time. They have had the Local Plan for five years and delivered nothing, meaning we are now at risk of losing huge swathes of Green Belt.
“Leisure facilities seem fine, but then the Conservatives’ redevelopment plan meant they had all been redeveloped, so are attractive to residents. The last one to be improved, the Harpenden Leisure Centre and nearby Eric Morecambe Centre (EMC) was well underway by the time the Liberal Democrats took over. “Let’s not even discuss the Charter Market, which is a shadow of its former self. The streets are increasingly looking like a Third World country, with weeds everywhere. Rubbish collection is still good but was outsourced and Veolia are still using the Conservatives’ strategy.
“Parking is a contentious issue as the Liberal Democrats try to implement their unpopular policy of slapping charges on every High Street in the district.”
She concluded: “The Liberal Democrats took over a well-oiled but highly sensitive machine over five years ago. Any changes to how commercial projects were delivered or how the council was run needed to be thoroughly financially analysed before they were made. Instead, they decided to take a series of highly political decisions, motivated by Liberal Democrat political aims and prejudices and not listening to any other views.
“This all backfired and they now face the inevitable financial consequences. They are looking for someone else to blame, when for over five years, they have had total power and have made the poor decisions. Despite having a huge majority and complete control, they refuse to take responsibility, so will never learn or improve. It’s time for a change.”
