No excuses – it’s time to end empty silence
IT’S now almost a month since Lancashire Police confirmed it was no longer investigating what went on with the Empty Homes Scandal at Rossendale Council.
For almost five years, whenever members of the public, opposition councillors or journalists have asked tricky questions about the project, a defence of ‘ we can’t say much, the police are investigating’ has been a regular reply.
To an extent, that was fair enough. If there was possible criminal offences somewhere within the scandal, then it was important that nothing was said or done which would limit the ability of the police to bring those responsible to justice.
But the police have finally said they won’t be continuing with their inquiries. That doesn’t diminish the huge impact the scandal has had on our council.
It has been written about so often that the recap only needs to be brief: Rossendale Council secured government money on behalf of councils across East Lancashire to repair some of the bleakest homes in East Lancashire.
It all went wrong when the company hired to administer the scheme, AAAW Ltd, went into administration, Rossendale Council was left holding the baby, so to speak, and paying to feed it. Latest council reports suggest the council has been left with a £ 7m bill from ensuring the scheme was completed.
Two independent (to Rossendale Council) reports were commissioned, and from that stemmed a request to the police to investigate.
The bill could yet go up further - recent council reports reference new legal claims being submitted by those involved. It is starting to feel like Rossendale Council’s
PPI - the never- ending cost.
And that’s why it’s all the more remarkable that a month on from the police confirming their investigations are over that we’ve barely heard a peep from the opposition Conservative Party.
Where’s the anger?
Where’s the demand for action? Where’s the insistence that Rossendale Council call an emergency meeting of the full council so all the questions which have been rebuffed on the grounds of police investigations can finally be answered?
And what of Labour’s own backbenchers? It’s very rare that you hear of a council issue which has become something so many people know about. Millions of pounds is involved - the total cost is almost the council’s annual yearly budget now, yet we’ve yet to hear too much publicly from local Labour councillors.
Then there is the Labour leadership itself. They weren’t the ones who signed up to the original scheme - it pre- dated their tenure in charge - but the collapse happened on their watch.
Independent investigations concluded political leadership was kept out of the loop of what was happening, but surely now is the time for the council’s leadership to explain what really happened.
The council has a scrutiny committee, which exists for the purpose of examining council activities.
They’ve looked at the visitor economy for Rossendale recently, and also the plans for the Leisure Trust in
Rossendale.
Both worthy and important topics, but surely not as important as £7m being spent on a project which went so wrong?
The silence is deafening, and that simply doesn’t feel right.