Councillors are right not to let the empty homes scandal drop
IN recent weeks, local Conservative councillors have appeared determined not to let the issue of the empty homes scandal drop.
And why not? It’s cost Rossendale Council £ 5m, is apparently subject to a police investigation ( which may not report back for up to 18 months) and, as yet, no- one either within Rossendale Council’s political leadership or staff leadership has accepted any responsibility for what has happened.
Maybe there is no responsibility to be accepted by the local political and council leadership - after all, it has been suggested they were kept in the dark about what was going on in the scheme, which collapsed after the firm employed by Rossendale Council to improve hundreds of rundown homes across East Lancashire went into administration.
More than once, conservative leader Brian Essex has called on the Labour leadership of the council to consider their position. It’s a logical thing to do, of course. The cost to the council has been huge, lots of questions remain unanswered, and surely there’s only so long you can argue you were kept in the dark before people ask: “Why weren’t you asking questions anyway?”
However, much as it’s a vexing issue within the council, it’s one of those issues which can struggle to make an impact in the community. After all, can anyone point to a service cut or a job lost as a result of the extra cash the council has had to find due to this project failing?
For at least one end of the Valley, the issue which cuts through far more than anything else is the on- going saga of Haslingden baths, which the council closed, citing budget cuts from government, several years ago.
Local campaigners fought hard to try and save it, setting up community groups to run it, but never quite able to get enough money together to make it happen.
Rossendale Council made a lot of noise about trying to help the community groups, but always gave the impression of being an enforced collaborator, rather than truly believing that it had a moral responsibility to work with the local community to protect a vital community facility.
In many ways, the for sale sign going up was inevitable. £ 175k isn’t a lot for the council to get for the site, but Haslingden has lost even more.
Local Tories should be pointing out, vocally, that it didn’t need to be like this. If the council had wanted Haslingden to keep a pool, then it would have found a way. Indeed, it had the money to build a new pool, it just chose to transfer the money to fund the purchase of the Valley Centre, which has paved the way for a new bus station, and the new town centre development which will probably include a hotel.
Had Labour leader Alyson Barnes, and her regeneration chief Andy McNae - who has since returned to the post - really wanted to save the pool, they could have done. At the time of the closure, it wasn’t due to budget cuts from government, despite the argument put forward by Labour councillors at the time. It was because they wanted to move the money elsewhere and fund something else.
The council has offered support to Rossendale’s ski slope to stand on its own two feet, and to Rawtenstall’s Whitaker Museum. It is working with the East Lancashire Railway to improve Rawtenstall station, and has supported financially developments such as the grip n go centre at Haslingden Leisure Centre.
Why no such on going support for Haslingden pool?
Once the building closed, done with a remarkable haste for an authority which still can’t share all the details of the £5m Empty Homes Collapse, three years after it happened, the odds were stacked against locals getting it re- opened. That fact is lost on few in Haslingden.
If local Tories want to make the gains they need to seize control of the council, fighting and shouting for Haslingden and it’s now- lost swimming pool seems an obvious step.