Sefton councillors seek answers over Marine Lake Events Centre costs

Opposition Sefton councillors have not given up on their attempts to find out the full story behind the 40% increase in the cost of the Marine Lake Events Centre -an increase in borrowing that will cost the council tax payer £3.5 M a year for the next 40 years.

The new facility costing now a minimum of £106M will have half of that cost met from money the Council will borrow. Originally it was to cost £72M.

Councillors denied access to key documents and facts about the development and the contract with the chosen builder are using the Freedom of Information Act to get more details from the reluctant Council Executive. A 280 page document on the development has been seen only by 9 Labour Cabinet members with the other 57 councillors denied access. 

According to Liberal Democrat, Cllr Pugh, who is the opposition leader on Sefton this is unacceptable, on every level. 

“There are key details about what has happened and is happening with this development which all councillors ought to know, have  a right to know but which the current Labour Cabinet does not want us to see. It may not be that this is to hide their blushes, but ordinary councillors ought not to be expected simply to believe that the Sefton Cabinet knows best- particularly as they seem to have got their sums so spectacularly wrong in the past. We need to understand whether the Cabinet’s chopping and changing builders and the delay that that has caused has added significant cost to the process. The snail like pace of this development has certainly bumped up the cost,

  We need too  to understand the different tenders from builders and options presented. I can understand that some people would sooner we didn’t, but the interest of every councillor is seeing public money well spent.

It is shaming that councillors are having to use Freedom of Legislation legislation to draw out details they should already have of right and in former years would have been provided automatically by Council officers, but that’s not the world of secret Sefton.   

Cllr.Pugh has also written to the Council’s auditors pointing out that the denial of serious scrutiny is putting the Council at financial risk.