TRAFFIC schemes may stop and start but the consultancy gravy train rolls on.
An investigation by Auto Express has found that £412,000 of our money was invested (or wasted, depending on your point of view) in closing the city centre to through traffic.
Of that, £250,622 – yes, a quarter of a million of our hard-earned pounds – went on ‘consultancy and monitoring’ fees. When anyone living or working in Salisbury could have told them for free that the project was poorly designed and ill-timed.
We’re following a predictable and costly outsourcing pattern in public spending here.
Unitary councils such as Wiltshire are put in charge of huge, diverse areas but are kept on such a tight rein that they can’t handle big projects in-house, and have to hand over Boris’s handouts to private companies to help them sort things out.
The results, as we see from our recent experience, can be less than impressive.
An investigation by Auto Express has found that £412,000 of our money was invested (or wasted, depending on your point of view) in closing the city centre to through traffic.
Of that, £250,622 – yes, a quarter of a million of our hard-earned pounds – went on ‘consultancy and monitoring’ fees. When anyone living or working in Salisbury could have told them for free that the project was poorly designed and ill-timed.
We’re following a predictable and costly outsourcing pattern in public spending here.
Unitary councils such as Wiltshire are put in charge of huge, diverse areas but are kept on such a tight rein that they can’t handle big projects in-house, and have to hand over Boris’s handouts to private companies to help them sort things out.
The results, as we see from our recent experience, can be less than impressive.
I gather that the Swindon & Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership are covering the council's losses. But it's still public money wafting around.
Now I come to think of it, doesn’t that just about sum up the handling of the coronavirus pandemic?
A massive redistribution of public money, yours and mine, to private sector cronies of the current administration. Look how successful that’s been!
And apart from that 60-odd per cent, what happened to the rest of the LTZ money?
According to Auto Express, £64,800 was spent on construction (must have been those barriers), £4,328 on road signs (presumably including the ones that told potential visitors to stay on the A36 and head straight on past Salisbury) and £92,250 on enforcement cameras which will at least come in handy when the scheme – hopefully in a much more people-friendly form – is inevitably resurrected.
Because there’s nothing wrong with trying to make Salisbury greener and more people-friendly. You just have to ask local people what that might mean, before you fritter away their taxes.
Now I come to think of it, doesn’t that just about sum up the handling of the coronavirus pandemic?
A massive redistribution of public money, yours and mine, to private sector cronies of the current administration. Look how successful that’s been!
And apart from that 60-odd per cent, what happened to the rest of the LTZ money?
According to Auto Express, £64,800 was spent on construction (must have been those barriers), £4,328 on road signs (presumably including the ones that told potential visitors to stay on the A36 and head straight on past Salisbury) and £92,250 on enforcement cameras which will at least come in handy when the scheme – hopefully in a much more people-friendly form – is inevitably resurrected.
Because there’s nothing wrong with trying to make Salisbury greener and more people-friendly. You just have to ask local people what that might mean, before you fritter away their taxes.
Oh, and by the way, suspending the project cost another £10-15,000.
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