Redbridge's Capital Programme a Complete Mess

12.28.00pm GMT Thu 11th Dec 2008

In a recent letter published in the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian and the Ilford Recorder (23rd October) Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Geoff Seeff has lambasted Redbridge's Tory Cabinet for neglecting over many years the buildings and community facilities within its care and trying to hide their embarrassment behind the fig leaf of "the Big Conversation". As he says, even if that consultation was properly representative (which it probably was not), knowing residents' priorities over project and funding options is not going to change anything - the essential work still has to be done and the funds can't be conjured up, especially during a declining property market. The full text of the letter, some of which was inevitably cut from the published versions, follows:-

Churchfields Junior School. A Victorian builidng due to have been replaced several years ago and now in need of urgent reapir

It would good news indeed if your headline last week "More Cash for Crumbling Schools" was to become a reality simply as a result of the wishes of the 5,000 participating in the Big Conversation. The sad truth is that, in the current economic climate, there is likely to be considerably less cash realised from land sales than there might have been when the consultation exercise was originally dreamed up and any receipts may be a long time coming - I suspect that there will be few private developers ready to take on Fairlop Waters just at the moment. Yet the rebuilding of Churchfields Junior School and the renovation work to Wanstead High School, the provision of community swimming pools, care facilities for the elderly and highway improvements, all part of the Council's statutory duties and not matters of choice, are long overdue.

Redbridge's capital programme is a complete mess and the Big Conversation, at the cost of a year of inertia and about £100,000 of council taxpayers' money, was a fig leaf to hide the Cabinet's embarrassment at having allowed amenities to deteriorate without making adequate financial provision for their replacement. It is no further forward and has the same difficult value judgments to make on priorities and sources of funds. Moreover, residents who oppose land sales, increases in parking charges or higher council tax will still object to these actions regardless of the response to the Conversation.

Churchfields Junior School; New financing methods offer hope for the replacement of primary schools

Between 1990 and 1997 the Tory Government and the Labour Government since then both encouraged local authorities to make use of Private Finance Initiatives ("PFI") and various forms of Public Private Partnerships ("PPP") to deliver the sorts of projects so desperately needed in this borough. These mechanisms do have disadvantages but, procured effectively, they should offer better value for money than traditional contracting over the long term and should avoid the need for the outright sale of land and amenities in use. I understand that several prospective PFI schemes in Redbridge were aborted (eg the reconstruction of Ilford Baths) whilst only small number of PFI projects have been progressed. Why were these "options" not presented to Conversation respondents but, more importantly, why, given the depressed state of the property market, is the Cabinet not examining opportunities to use PFI/PPP to help fund the capital programme?