Uttlesford District Council faces job cuts and service decline because the Residents for oUrselves (R4oU) [aka R4U] political administration has now put UDC in debt to the tune of  £275,000,000 to prop up their wasteful spending plans. That’s forty-five times the Council’s basic tax income; a massive mortgage on the shoulders of local residents and businesses.

The Council issued a press release last week that tells part of the story. It fails to say that R4oU was warned over two years ago not to borrow money for day-to-day expenditure through a massive property buying spree.

Today a press statement has been issued jointly by Liberal Democrat and Green councillors in an effort to bring into the open the spendthrift and reckless borrowing by R4oU. Here is an extract from the press statement:

Once again, R4U cynically blames the Government for this financial debacle instead of acknowledging their own reckless mismanagement. In the same way, R4U blamed the Government over the Stansted Airport appeal they lost, instead of acknowledging that they had failed to defend their own planning committee decision.

Liberal Democrat and Green councillors have regularly expressed their concerns over the way the council’s investment programme has been run and called for transparency and governance in the process. These concerns were dismissed as playing politics. Green councillor, Paul Fairhurst, who had set up the Investment Board, resigned from the Board because of these governance weaknesses.