Mellen not blameless for finance failures
WHAT a load of rubbish Captain Clueless – aka Keir Starmer – was spouting in Nottingham this week.
It is incorrect to suggest that council leader David Mellen is blameless for Nottingham’s major financial problems. While Mellen did inherit a difficult hand of cards due to irresponsible spending by previous leader Jon Collins, exteacher Mellen then went on to make things far worse with lots more crazy waste-of-money schemes.
Mellen was one of the leading lights in the massive loss-making Robin Hood Energy scheme. He bowed down to the controversial pressure group Pedals and agreed to waste much money on yet more cycle lanes that are already proving to be an expensive great white elephant. He also ignored advice against extending resident permit schemes to so many areas where it was not justified or wanted.
Transparency has never been a strength at Nottingham City Council as surveys for controversial new schemes failed to take so many views into account.
We now have the unenviable position where Nottingham has more than 10 times the number of permits per head of population compared to other cities in the Midlands. And of course we have the situation where Nottingham has the second highest council tax in England.
Clearly Mellen did not have sufficient knowledge or experience for the role as leader. It is likely that last May during local elections council leaders must have known that the city was on the verge of going bankrupt – but they chose to brush everything under the carpet.
I hope that whoever succeeds Mellen will avoid making so many mistakes.
Paul Rowe Stapleford