‘We knew it would be costly but we had no choice’

CARL LES, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, was involved in the negotiation of the 2002 PFI deal which provided replacement primary schools at Barlby, Brotherton & Byram, Kirby Hill and Ripon Cathedral.

Construction of the schools cost £6.6m, with finance provided by Nationwide Building Society. Over the course of 25 years, interest payments and service costs mean the total public expenditure will be £27.7m.

Reflecting on the contract, Coun Les said: “If we wanted new schools we had to go down the PFI route. It does look to be expensive but borrowing money is more expensive than paying out of your reserves.

“What we did well was we didn’t end up with an expensive PFI contract for the management of the schools as well as the building. That is where you get into horror stories about things like charging £87 to change a lightbulb.

“We had a number of schools in the county built in Victorian times; they were no longer fit for purpose. We had to build new schools. It seems like a lot of money but in the context of where we were then it is reasonable.”

North Yorkshire, in partnership with City of York Council, has since embarked upon a much more expensive – and more controversial – PFI contract for the energy-from-waste Allerton Waste Recovery Park, just off the A1 between Knaresborough and Easingwold.

In total £1.4bn will be paid out as part of the contract for the site, which is expected to be operational by next year and will dramatically cut the amount of waste going to landfill.

In 2013, the Government withdrew funding credits, meaning the burden fell on local taxpayers. But council officials argued that by doing nothing, the cost of dealing with the waste would have been £300 million higher.

Coun Les said: “We have a huge bill to pay but we would have a huge bill to pay anyway.”