Kamikaze budget, casino economics, bankrupting policies, freezing taxes while increasing borrowing dangerously as interest rates soar. Sound familiar?
No, not Number 10, but BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) Council leadership promising low tax/small state, but instead wasting millions on high-rise, big plan transformation vanity schemes while neglecting the basics. Consequently, BCP suffers some of the worst services for vulnerable children and adults, anti-social behaviour, drug crime, traffic congestion and parking…and all amidst near bankruptcy.
BCP leadership needs an effective scrutiny committee to keep it on the straight and narrow, having replaced the original with several compliant mini-committees with smaller remits and limited scope.
Now even Tory Ministers describe BCP’s policies as:
“Dodgy deals which only benefited consultancy and accountants firms”
rather than residents.
Deals included BCP’s some unseen KPMG reports, trying to pawn beach huts and pledging over £11 million for secretive “special purpose vehicles”, such as Future Places, aiding developers behind closed doors while exposing BCP to corruptibility, conflict of interest and criticism of non-transparency.
Back in 2020, Transparency International UK concluded the BCP Council had by far the worst risk of potential for corruption of all English local authorities: a conclusion drawn from nationally-assessed data on lobbying, oversight and conflict of interest risks.
Increasingly, the current leadership has become an electoral liability for Conservative Councillors, leading to a toxic not-fit-for-purpose regime so incompetent it is no longer trusted to run itself – culminating in a S114 (bankruptcy) Notice and a damning report from external auditors. The latter confirmed that :
“the Council does not have arrangements in place for ensuring financial sustainability into the medium term.”
This failed leadership needs replacing asap. No need to wait for the council elections in May as our leadership petition, on reaching 2,400, has triggered a Council leadership debate on November 8, which you can attend. in the meantime, please, lobby your councillors to vote for better leaders! If you aren’t sure who your councillor is, you can find them here.
To view the petition, get further information on why we need new leaders and to register dissatisfaction with the current leadership, click here.
