Pigeons have come home to roost, says councillor over deficit

A FINANCE expert on Angus Council’s administration has warned that its £45 million deficit is simply “pigeons coming home to roost”.

Arbroath West and Letham councillor Alex King responded to claims that Carnoustie will be dealt a raw deal, after a document this week showed the massive gulf in capital budgets for the next five years.

Rather than this coming as a surprise, Mr King said the crisis has been predicted since 2009, adding: “Now the Alliance pigeons have come home to roost.”

He took exception to Carnoustie independent councillor Brian Boyd’s assertion in The Courier, that the town was only given new schools because they were built by public-private partnership.

He said: “It is true that Robertson Construction went to the banks and borrowed the cash to pay for the capital cost of the construction, as Councillor Boyd says.

“What he does not say is that Angus Council is paying Robertson Construction over £2 million each year, just to cover the capital cost of building the schools and the interest required to fund that capital cost.

“That is a total finance charge of almost £70 million over the 30-year life of the project, never mind the maintenance and operating charges which add almost another £50 million, making a total of almost £ 120 million for the Carnoustie schools alone before the schools finally revert to council ownership.”

On Wednesday, The Courier revealed a document in which a list of community projects look certain to fall foul of a £45 million shortfall in council finances.

Mr King said the crucial point in the shortfall is not in how much the authority can borrow, but how much it can afford to pay back.

He said: “The council can only borrow what it can afford to pay back.

“With that overruling caveat, the council must than judge how best to allocate scarce capital resources for the benefit of Angus as a whole — and not for any one burgh in particular.”