Claims by Angus Council’s corporate services convener that the removal or substantial reduction of the Montrose swimming pool project from the capital plan will result in the £10m earmarked going elsewhere have been described as “complete and utter nonsense.”
While critics have called for the plan to be shelved, the convener, Montrose councillor Mark Salmond, has warned that would mean the money going to another Angus project and Montrose possibly having no swimming pool at all in the future.
However, SNP group finance spokesman Alex King has hit back, saying, “There is no automatic requirement to spend up to the maximum possible on capital projects.
“In the current climate of financial pressures on the council’s revenue budgets I would have thought that avoiding committing the council to the future revenue implications of avoidable capital expenditure would be a priority.
“Councillor Salmond always makes a great effort to say that the capital plan is considered to be affordable, sustainable and prudent every time he tries to justify this, his own personal pet project.
“It may have been affordable only a few months ago, but since then the announcement of drastic funding cuts by the new UK Government and the recent Angus Council report calling for budget cuts of some £30m over the next four years has changed all that.
“That report also points out that capital financing costs, which are part of the revenue budget, are to rise by almost 20% over the same four years in cash terms some £2.5m.
“I would have thought that councillor Salmond would have been turning over every available stone, looking for cuts in the revenue budget in these times of financial stringency.”
Cancelling or at least delaying for a few years those capital projects not both absolutely critical and totally essential would have the obvious result of reducing both borrowings and annual capital financing costs, including the interest payments on capital borrowed, he added.
He also rubbished any idea opposition councillors calling for a re-assessment of the pool plan were motivated by an anti-Montrose agenda or an alternative plan for the money.
He said, “I believe that every item in the future capital programme should be subjected to an intense critical examination to determine whether or not its provision over the next four or five years is indeed wholly essential and advisable in the light of the financial crisis facing the council.
“We have called for all items to be subjected to critical examination and that includes items in Arbroath such as the schools project and the Victoria Park coastal protection scheme.
“Press reports have up till now focused on the new Montrose pool. Perhaps the focus should switch to finding out why capital spending by the council is to burgeon over the next four years, with an associated and consequential increase of almost 20% in the revenue costs of financing the increased capital spend.
“This means there will be a massive increase in capital financing costs while the same Angus Council is looking for cuts of some £30m in its revenue spending over the next four years.”