Local Timber Yard Accused of Selling Southport Pier Wood

Evidence that boards from the Southport Pier are being sold by a local timber yard have prompted calls from the opposition leader on Sefton Council Liberal Democrat,  Cllr. John Pugh, for a full investigation.  

“ This makes me very angry as it appears to show Sefton acting with customary secrecy. The current administration have tried to give the impression that the whole Pier is as rotten as a pear and to present the necessary repairs as too awesome to contemplate in current circumstances. It is apparent that much of the wood can be repurposed, restored and reused.

Even the areas that have been exposed by Sefton's own investigations show large areas of the sort of sound wood that we’d all have to pay good money for at B&Q.

Sefton are intent on fighting a propaganda war to justify their own inertia. One moment they are telling us it’s fundamentally unsafe, next minute they’re inviting crowds of college students along it to look at the worst bits. One moment they are telling us the woods rotten, next minute they‘re selling it on. 

Everyone knows that the Pier needs some major restoration and that repairs don’t come cheap, but I have genuine concern that the Council won’t get best value out of the process because it’s not in their mindset currently to be open and transparent on an issue that has become a political hot potato. 

It is though more important to get the costings right than the propaganda.  "