Ferret was as shocked as anyone when Independent Hemsworth Town Council finally revealed, through a Freedom of Information Request the losses which they had tried to hide from YOU for the Lakeside Café Bar.
Here are the accounts in full, for the first year in operation of the Lakeside Café Bar under the stewardship of Mr Jim Kenyon – Chair of Independent Hemsworth Town Council.
Ferret would like to remind readers that the Independent Councillors instructed the Clerk to the Council to make changes to the Lakeside Café at “whatever the cost” to open it as a bar.
This cost £229,208 in just one year. Losses of nearly £5000 per week which YOU paid for.
Beeches club, Jubilee club, Ayr stadium, sounds very familiar, Jim’ll fix it (that’s another story just being talked about)
Trust these people? Not fit to breathe the same air as decent folk.
150k of this looks to be related to construction and new equipment. Not to mention the financial impact of COVID.
I doubt this is a accurate picture of the true expenditure 65000 plus on repairs to the building and grounds not a small amount by any stretch of the imagination. What did they inherit to justify that amount of money the place must have been half destroyed. Giving that sheet a brief scan from when they took over for every month I see no payments to a building contractors anywhere near those figures none. On the other hand neither do I see on there the figures for entertainment and security. They’ve had turns on down there every week ranging between £300 and £500 a time plus a security firm who they’ve paid quite substantial amounts to no mention of it neither is the payments deposits etc for the pensioners band Venga boys or for planning it or other money paid for plans for a sports village on land that maybe not theirs. I think a forensic audit is required they don’t come cheap mind you can get a good London company Frenkels and they’re only six grand oh death me I forget we’ve had one haven’t we I remember now and that’s not mentioned on that sheet either
Scott, this was the year before covid, and construction costs? Did they make bigger pockets for themselves, disgraceful by any standards, don’t defend the indefensible. remember those words ” whatever the cost” typical Kenyon business planning
What construction it doesn’t say construction it says repairs
I guess they could argue that the venga boys stuff isn’t a lakeside bar cost, however you’re right about the acts, a quick scan of 2019 budgets shows a fair few grand paid to these acts. I’ve never been to any of these events but I’d be interested to hear what the turn out was like, did the takings on those days justify paying these acts or was it just a bit of entertainment for the cabal while they had an afternoon drinking sesh?
To give coun Womersley his due in a meeting a few months back he asked that any spend at the lakeside bar was brought to the council to vote on before it was spent, listening in on that meeting I recall him being asked by a defensive sounding coun Eccles what he knew about running a business. The motion of taking these spends through the council was passed. One has to ask though if coun Eccles believes himself to be such an astute business man (as implied by his comments to coun W) why has the lakeside lost so much money?
Looking at these posts the true figure of losses will be well over 1/4 of a million pounds. With creative accounting those hidden costs could be added to the waterpark figures to fool people into thinking that’s where the main problem lays. Then easier to give to a trust, for them to give away to Eccles and this will make you smile, I don’t think, for HTC to maintain in perpetuity.
This is before covid upto In the first year covid would have only affected about 2 weeks of trade tops
They should all resign they’ve cost us a fortune and gave the district a bad name nothing but a bunch of crooks.
I’m not sure the majority realise what damage they are doing. The amount of posts I’ve seen on social media regarding the WP saying how great it is the bar is open, how great it is there’s flowers around how great the meals are. How great Kenyon is doing. So many people really don’t know the truth.
They will when they realise they won’t be getting the £200000 precept back as they were pledged and additional bills to cover all this stupid spending on top. And remember, this is without lawyers bills and costs to us all that could very easily be in the region of 3 million pounds that will fall on us due to Kenyon and co continuing to spread stupid lies. On top of this the damage caused due to neglect to maintain all our other assets due to lack of funds cos they’ve wasted the lot.
£230,000 loss ! This could have been even more. At one meeting where discussions were taking place regarding excessive spending at the Waterpark, it was suggested that Playworld needed a lot spending on it . The installation of a lift at the lakeside. A new boiler for the lakeside, and heres the best bit…£17000 !…..for a fridge/freezer !!!! SPEND..SPEND..SPEND !
If you deduct from the above figures the claims for repairs to buildings machinery and grounds along with new and replacement catering equipment and put them down as one off and write them off then it the pub still runs at a considerable loss. It’s income is £1999.406 it’s outgoings and this does not include costs for entertainment or security because they have ommited them from the accounts and they should be in there as they are directly attributable to the pub even then it’s outgoings is roughly 284000 which gives that pub roughly an 85000 operating loss and that’s with factoring in all what you could call legitimate outgoings such as wages insurance fuel cost of food drink etc which is declared on the balance sheet. If you were to add on the costs of security and entertainment then no doubt that figure would be considerably higher. I believe it was shut previously because of losses it should have stayed shut it’s not a viable concern and if left only more losses will be made
The question begging answering there is why did councillor Womersley feel that he needed to ask the question that any further spending on the bar be brought back to the council to vote on. Irrespective of whom is in charge of HTC that place is a dead loss it’s a white elephant. Talk of restoring things to their past glory seems to be quite fashionable with some on HTC and also a number of their followers and all it does is expose their naivety and incompetence when it comes to manage the public’s finances. Had they the gumption or common sense they would have consulted a business consultant and carried out a feasibility study and took good advice as to whether such a project was viable and sound I’m sure any advice would have told them to keep OUR money safe in the bank it’s not a goer it shut for a reason and it wasn’t because it was making a profit it was losing hand over fist that’s why it was shut. Times have changed the hospitality business and pubs face very challenging times hundreds of pubs shut every week how the bloody hell someone thinks they can make that place a going concern is beyond me it’s virtually shut for nine months of the year. Nostalgia and dreams of past glories and hard headed business decisions are not compatible were here in the present and that’s what we need to deal with
So if all the decisions had to come back to the council for approval, that actually means that all those who voted for them hold responsibility including Cllr womersley. The sooner he decides to be accountable and start explaining by answering those questions the better. Silence equals complicity, inaction means negligence. All those involved need to step down, that hole they’ve dug for themselves is getting deeper and deeper. They’re hypocrites, the loud and false allegations they made and here they are seemingly dropping to a level that surpasses everything that they accused the last lot of. They’re that stupid that they even brought in an expert to try to prove all the made up lies and were no doubt shocked when he couldn’t. We now have a community being run by donkey brained criminals.
So all this money spent and Kenyon has already decided what he’s spending our part of the 10.000.000 on when he can get his mitts on it
Plus the selling of land in Fitzwilliam that should actually go to something for Fitzwilliam
Hes always moaning wakefield take hemsworth land and never gives anything to hemsworth but yet he’s doing the same with Fitzwilliam
And if I hear them crying about money we should have gotten in 19 nought blob as an excuse to put people off when they ask a question about what’s happening now
Every time they talk it has to go back to well when the last council blah blah blah just to put people off what they are actually doing now
Why is Eccles running the water park
What is the general manager actually getting paid for
Why is the general manager living rent free in our flat and why are we paying for her free flat decorating and furnishing
What have they actually spent 230,000 on because I see nothing to show for that missing money apart from flowers
Piles of muck and rubbish they keep dumping at the park a park supposedly for kids
Burying rubbish at the park a park supposedly for kids
total cost thus far for nega concert £9 .150
venga concert that should have said
total cost of farmers car park development thus far £3,055 total income £208 from car parking awaiting info on why the plant equip recently bought was not used, what was it bought for n is anyone qualified to operate the plant equipment
when did peice of land at side of farmers become eccles? had pathway threw it to back of houses and shop and a bench seat near road? that land was nothing to do with farmers so who put it up for sale? real question lol how much did councilor eccles pay to aquire this land?