£1.8m down the drain every year

A

Alexander Supertramp

Well-known member
From Mayor Andy Preston :




£1.8m Down The Drain Every Year

Middlesbrough Council has made some shocking decisions over the years.

One of the very worst was demolishing part of Gresham, 561 homes were demolished at a cost then of about £50 million. That would be more like £100 million today.

Every person in Middlesbrough is still paying for the cost of this, the interest alone is £1 million per year. But in addition to this, there is another massive financial cost in the lost council tax receipts of £800,000 per year.

On top of 1.8 million annual costs in cash terms, the human cost of the failed Gresham redevelopment is staggering.

Families were destroyed, lives were ruined and the community was completely ravaged.

My point here is not to live in the past, but to say that we have chances to put these things right.

The Mayoral Development Corporation had £8 million ready and waiting to be invested in Gresham to fast track more development of homes to improve the environment for people that live there, and to make visitors to Middlesbrough feel that they are coming to a more positive ambitious and productive place.

I’m working hard to try and make sure that we can still win a mayoral development corporation from the government.

Certainly, the majority of Middlesbrough councillors are behind this and I have written to Michael Gove and Ben Houchen stressing this widespread support and urging them to press ahead with a plan.
 
Alexander Supertramp said:
From Mayor Andy Preston :




£1.8m Down The Drain Every Year

Middlesbrough Council has made some shocking decisions over the years.

One of the very worst was demolishing part of Gresham, 561 homes were demolished at a cost then of about £50 million. That would be more like £100 million today.

Every person in Middlesbrough is still paying for the cost of this, the interest alone is £1 million per year. But in addition to this, there is another massive financial cost in the lost council tax receipts of £800,000 per year.

On top of 1.8 million annual costs in cash terms, the human cost of the failed Gresham redevelopment is staggering.

Families were destroyed, lives were ruined and the community was completely ravaged.

My point here is not to live in the past, but to say that we have chances to put these things right.

The Mayoral Development Corporation had £8 million ready and waiting to be invested in Gresham to fast track more development of homes to improve the environment for people that live there, and to make visitors to Middlesbrough feel that they are coming to a more positive ambitious and productive place.

I’m working hard to try and make sure that we can still win a mayoral development corporation from the government.

Certainly, the majority of Middlesbrough councillors are behind this and I have written to Michael Gove and Ben Houchen stressing this widespread support and urging them to press ahead with a plan.
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Weren't a directly elected mayor and a businessman involved in this?
 
Alexander Supertramp said:
One of the very worst was demolishing part of Gresham, 561 homes were demolished at a cost then of about £50 million. That would be more like £100 million today.

Every person in Middlesbrough is still paying for the cost of this, the interest alone is £1 million per year. But in addition to this, there is another massive financial cost in the lost council tax receipts of £800,000 per year.
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What does £50M equating to £100M mean? Isn't that just a reflection of the stupidly high levels of inflation we've been seeing. What is the relevance?

And who is the interest owed to? Surely that would have been included in the project costing?
 
Alexander Supertramp said:
From Mayor Andy Preston :




£1.8m Down The Drain Every Year

Middlesbrough Council has made some shocking decisions over the years.

One of the very worst was demolishing part of Gresham, 561 homes were demolished at a cost then of about £50 million. That would be more like £100 million today.

Every person in Middlesbrough is still paying for the cost of this, the interest alone is £1 million per year. But in addition to this, there is another massive financial cost in the lost council tax receipts of £800,000 per year.

On top of 1.8 million annual costs in cash terms, the human cost of the failed Gresham redevelopment is staggering.

Families were destroyed, lives were ruined and the community was completely ravaged.

My point here is not to live in the past, but to say that we have chances to put these things right.

The Mayoral Development Corporation had £8 million ready and waiting to be invested in Gresham to fast track more development of homes to improve the environment for people that live there, and to make visitors to Middlesbrough feel that they are coming to a more positive ambitious and productive place.

I’m working hard to try and make sure that we can still win a mayoral development corporation from the government.

Certainly, the majority of Middlesbrough councillors are behind this and I have written to Michael Gove and Ben Houchen stressing this widespread support and urging them to press ahead with a plan.
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I can't believe that anyone in their right mind would pay any heed to a person writing to a minister to beg for a scheme to go ahead when he had to excuse himself from the proceedings due Tom having a financial interest in the investment zone.

Yet here we are and not only is that where we are, but houchen wants him to sit on the board.
 
Well firstly. he inherited the situation in Gresham. The houses were long since demolished and the land stood empty for a number of years.
Secondly, the answer to your question is in the OP.
Alexander Supertramp said:
The Mayoral Development Corporation had £8 million ready and waiting to be invested in Gresham to fast track more development of homes to improve the environment for people that live there
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The site isn't awash with money and building stalled before Christmas because the builders ran into financial difficulties due to rising costs of materials. But the area badly needed redeveloping and now thankfully it is being.
 
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Odd isn't it, mayor Preston was a million miles away when this was happening.

This happened quite a while ago so the details are slightly sketchy.

First of all Ray Mallon got agreement from the then Labour government to provide funds to rebuild Gresham (£50 million)
Ray, and I knew Ray fairly well, was keen to get on with the job and imposed Compulsory purchase order on the properties in Gresham, remember that the properties were on the whole in a very poor state, not all granted but by far the majority were.

Ray and the council managed to buy most of the properties and most of the home owners were over the moon and many moved to estates with gardens, into semis and even bungalows. Again that was most, not all, some totally resisted the move, some were too old, some liked living close to the town, some had paid off the mortgate and couldn't get a home at a price they could afford.

Anyway

Then we had a GE and Tony Blair/Gordon Brown was out of office and in came David Cameron, one of the first things he did was to impost austerity and cancelled the £50m that was promised to the council by the government.
The plan was pulled by the Tories, not Middlesbrough Council; mistakes was made for sure, it was well before my time, but Ray Mallon should have got the cash in the bank before he started to demolish Gresham, that was the fatal error.

I'd also would have liked to have reminded Preston that just like him, Mallon was an independent Mayor, not a Labour mayor.
 
TheLodger said:
I'd also would have liked to have reminded Preston that just like him, Mallon was an independent Mayor, not a Labour mayor.
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To be fair, Labour are not mentioned in the OP, just Middlesbrough council. Preston calls it a shocking error and you call it a fatal error which is pretty much the same thing.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
To be fair, Labour are not mentioned in the OP, just Middlesbrough council. Preston calls it a shocking error and you call it a fatal error which is pretty much the same thing.
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Apart from Preston calls the error for actually doing something, I called the error for not quite getting it right.
 
TheLodger said:
Apart from Preston calls the error for actually doing something, I called the error for not quite getting it right.
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You're calling out exactly the same error are you not? Knocking the houses down before you have the money in the bank for rebuilding.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
You're calling out exactly the same error are you not? Knocking the houses down before you have the money in the bank for rebuilding.
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Lots of very unusual things happened at that time, we had the world banking crash, we had a new Tory Government and we had the biggest austerity imposed since the 2nd world war. No one could have expected that, but in my opinion Mallon should have had the cash in the bank, he saw it as government guarantees and at that time that was a valuable asset. Cameron destroyed that at a stroke of a pen.
 
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