| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Boston Manor Park Gates still closed one week on from music event | |
| Posted by: | Joseph Gerald Bourke | |
| Date/Time: | 11/05/18 10:45:00 |
| Guy, Not having to pay the profit margin of private contractors was part of the rationale for taking over the annual waste and recycling contract from Suez in 2016 The report on the councils overview and scrutiny meeting notes an overspend by recycling 360 – a subsidiary of Lampton 360 – of £1.4m and a capital investment of £22m that clearly incurs significant costs of capital. These increased costs have been incurred despite a reduction from weekly to fornightly waste collections while recycling rates have declined.https://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/hounslow-council-overspends-14-million-14501472 The Carillion management fees presumably cover the cost of providing management and administrative staff and services and not purely a profit add-on. The council may not see significant reductions in the cost of services simply by bringing them in-house. With a reported budget overspend of £7m on the council accounts for last year, it seems reasonable to conclude “not having to pay profit margins” is not of itself going to balance the books or even necessarily lead to lower costs for service provision in many areas. The council website information for Lampton 360 notes “Lampton Development – is a property developer established to redevelop surplus local authority land, with residential and mixed use projects.” The Chair of Lampton 360, commenting on the Nantly House development said: “I am delighted that this project is moving forward, using local authority surplus land…This will be the first of many sites that Lampton 360 will be developing on behalf of Hounslow Council.” Mr Curran in a recent article said “that the policy of buying up homes had not worked, saying: “When we got into the detail we found it was expensive and very time consuming." He said Lampton would now be concentrating instead on buying groups of houses or blocks of flats to try to improve on its target. Selling off local authority surplus land for private development while right to buy continues to deplete council housing stock is not a sustainable strategy for plugging gaps in the council budget. I think much greater focus needs to given to the capture of development gains through S106 and CIL agreements with a view to maintaining council land for the development of social rent and shared ownership housing. |