I refer to the Leader of Swindon Council’s recent column in your newspaper. I congratulate him in writing such a provocative piece, however the principles for which Councillor Renard espoused were far from the reality by which his and previous Conservative Leaders have practiced at Swindon Borough Council.
I refer to the Leader of Swindon Council’s recent column in your newspaper. I congratulate him in writing such a provocative piece, however the principles for which Councillor Renard espoused were far from the reality by which his and previous Conservative Leaders have practiced at Swindon Borough Council.
In his column, the first thing Councillor Renard argues is that state intervention is not the solution to driving economic development, ONLY private sector investment is. If he truly believes this then can I ask Councillor Renard why has he agreed to bankroll up to £22m on the Union Square development and why at only last week’s Cabinet Meeting, £4.5m was agreed to be allocated from Swindon Council to the private sector?
In the Town Centre alone, tens of millions of pounds of public sector money has been spent by Swindon Council on the Town Centre in the hope of boosting economic development. Indeed over the last 5 or more years, there is a case to be made that Swindon Council has become one of the most Keynesian of local authorities in the country as the Council’s net debt has increased by £90m in the hope of boosting local economic development.
Readers might think that a Labour politician would support such an approach; however the problem is that in some cases this state intervention approach has not gone in conjunction with private sector investment, particularly with Union Square and the failed Wi-Fi company Digital City. And because the council has to set a break-even revenue budget, the huge increases in borrowing has lead to debt charges of £10m which now represents nearly 15% of the council’s overall revenue budget. So in fact Council borrowing to boost economic development means there is less money to employ more social workers which Ofsted have identified as a priority and less money for other council provided services.
Councillor Renard also argues that Swindon needs to solely focus on the private sector for jobs. I agree that the best way to increase jobs is through bringing in new businesses and expanding existing businesses, however we should not overlook opportunities to bring public sector organisations to Swindon. After all, English Heritage and the Research Council have provided high quality jobs for Swindon residents and more recently the BBC’s move to Salford has proved of huge benefit to the Greater Manchester economy. So I don’t think it’s helpful to Swindon residents wanting good quality jobs, to ONLY target private sector opportunities.
So in response to Councillor Renard’s comment that the Council should negotiate firmly and fairly with the private sector, with a view to saying “yes”, I would absolutely agree with this but where council support is needed we need to be firm that this is in conjunction with private sector investment and we need to be fair not just with companies that we are negotiating with, but with all stakeholders.
Cllr Jim Grant
Swindon Labour Group Leader