From May 2019, since the “Independents” took control of Hemsworth Town Council, this Township has visibly deteriorated in condition, seemingly across everything that Hemsworth Town Council control on behalf of ourselves, the residents and precept payers, that fund everything that it does.
Its remit as a Town council, is to provide facilities that are not available from the District Council, in our case this is Wakefield.
They inherited first class facilities ranging from the Waterpark, Sports Grounds and Community Centres both in Hemsworth and Fitzwilliam.
These had been well maintained due to planned maintenance schemes being in place, staff employed that are actually able to do the work to the standard required and equally important, proper budget provisions being made, year on year, to ensure finances were in place to fund any works needed and undertaken.
This included any work that had been identified that would be necessary in the future and as most companies do, also a contingency fund for any unseen work or emergency work that may arise.
This is standard practice and not rocket science!
Did this independent council follow this procedure, no, not on your life they didn’t.
Amazingly one of the first things they did was:
- Order the conversion of the Lakeside Café and Children’s Indoor Play, into a “sixties pub” regardless of cost.
No business planning had been conducted or put in place and also no funding budgeted.
Ferret believes this was one of the reasons that has led to the now visible degradation of our Community assets.
How did THE Independent Cabal remedy this lack of funding for this hair brained scheme?
Oh it was so easy really, they took all the funds that had been budgeted for the other services facilities provision, and merged them into one “pot” and used them.
As we all know, our money was thrown about like confetti and cash payments abounded particularly during the Lakeside conversion and yet what did we get for all this money?
Many people have commented that there was actually very little to see for what was actually spent and repair after repair seemed to be the order of the day, strangely on the same equipment over and over again.
They did not give a second thought to the knock on effect it would have on the other facilities when there was no money available to repair or maintain them.
They even stopped the planned provision of the refurbishment of the toilet block that included a disabled toilet extension being added in the Waterpark, which had been fully budget and planned by the previous Labour Led Town Council.
This was not an isolated incident but the foretaste of what was to come, with old plant and machinery bought that then required extensive repairs and refurbishment, again with no budget provision.
Money, OUR money was used on Councillors Eccles’ own properties against all the principles that apply to standards in local government.
There seems to be no end to this madness, even now the cabal members keep pressing for a lift installing in the lakeside, with no business planning and budget provision.
They seem incapable of even learning the basics of running a business and service provision for this community, as now the signs of misspending the budgets are showing and showing badly.
The sports facilities require expensive repairs and the money that had been set aside for it has been wasted elsewhere.
Most of the staff have left, disgruntled for one reason or another and found employment elsewhere.
The planned maintenance schemes that were in place have long been abandoned and even some Councillors have commented that the replacement staff do not seem competent to undertake the necessary work.
An example of this is the paths that need repairing in the waterpark at a figure reported by the Town Clerk that could be as high as £45000.
This work used to be done as planned work during the winter months and as you may expect, by the council’s own workforce during the quiet period for both them and visitors.
Again no money has been budgeted for this work and again it should have only needed a budget for the materials to be used, which would be a very major saving in cost.
From Riches to Rags, the Independent Hemsworth Town Council way, well for us anyway…
You mention disabled toilets, Is there no disabled toilets at the WP?
Irate resident, There are, inside the lakeside and playworld I believe, but this was for provision of disabled facilities/toilet and refurbishment of the main outside toilet block that is mainly used at the park and had been identified as needed.