NO UPDATES for a while, I hear you say! No, I haven’t been chopped up and put into a kebab, and updates should become a bit more frequent from now on.
I notice that someone posted some stuff using the name Filltheone on the Gasjet about the latest multi-million pound beg-a-thon from the Pleasure Beach. It’s not me, as anyone who has read this site knows.
My view on the latest round of begging bowl shenanigans from the Pleasure Beach is no different to the view I held last time. When the banks won’t lend to you, they think the risk is too high, and I feel that it is wrong for the Pleasure Beach to receive favours from the council which would not be extended anywhere else. If Amanda Thompson cannot run the Pleasure Beach at a profit, she should be forced to sell up like every other business operator.
It feels like Blackpool Council and whichever other public sector body they are begging from now are hooked on trying to keep the Pleasure Beach in the Thompson family, with money no object.
I also think Simon Blackburn is a hypocrite given the slating he gave the Conservatives in relation to the £5m loan which was signed off by Peter Callow. He said at the time, “I am a massive fan of the Pleasure Beach, but this is the wrong decision.” He went on to say that, “we are a council, not a bank, and the council needs to realise this.”
He has tried to worm his way out of what he said now that Amanda Thompson is more or less running Marketing Blackpool, but this is typical of any politician. He now says that he was doubting the ability of the Conservatives in putting together a “decent deal”, which seems a far cry from the above quotes and for me constitutes a U-turn.
Fair play to Tory leader Tony Williams who is still sticking to his guns and saying that he supports both loans, it’s just a shame he and his cohorts chose to enact the first one in secret.
Glad to see you are back, I sent an email to the Gazette a few days ago and will be pleased to offer more details if they publish it. Meanwhile here is a plug for my new Youtube based local news service. Tower Tube!!!
well how does one find it?
Click his name!
did try that, but didn’t find it , duh , now have after adding “news” to search, cheers
Hooray hes back, the GUVNOR!
Great to have you back Phil
I suspect James Newton, he has been masquerading as other people too!
Maybe Tony Williams was in on the original PB deal but other conservative councillors were allegedly kept in the dark and remained unable to get details, that was a key failing of the way Callow operated.
“Allegedly” the £5 million may not have been the councils money; it may have been Blackpool PCT’s underspend, being looked after by the Council to prevent central government clawing it back. This would also explain a reason for secrecy.
It wasn’t the reason cited though! We were told it was for commercial confidentiality, i.e., the public and other businesses were not to be told what the generous deal entailed because no doubt we’d all want one.
They said the money loaned to the PB was from a £5 million grant obtained through central government for job creation and business development; yet they gave it to one company at a time when they were laying off more staff than the Pleasure Beach. Anyway; would you tell councillors; the public and other businesses that you were using a public health underspent to prop up a company in debt?????
Smells of fish and rats tails to me.
“It wasn’t the reason cited though! We were told it was for commercial confidentiality”
I don’t think the above statement true but it would be nearer the mark then Popeyes. What Popeye is suggesting happened is a criminal act (misuse of government monies) and would involve false accounting by not only the PCT but Blackpool Council. These are government accounts and again it is illegal to falsify them, if popeye has proof of what he is saying give it to the press and the police and let get these criminals arrested.
Hi John, Sadly the information came from a conversation with a senior officer of the council. So much money came in through grants that it was easy to move it from one budget to another; to prop up projects like the climbing towers and keep senior officers in post who were grant funded. You only need to look at how many re structures the council has undergone in the last 12 years.”Smoke and Mirrors”
I go by what I was told and what I experienced.
What about a scottish version of Philtheone? Phil McCavity? Phil McCrevice? They could be ward councillors for the area around Dickson Road
Hmmm…. !
Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
Deal done, according to LCC’s your Lancashire site -
£1 million of LEP ‘assistance’ for PBB.
(So that’s where Mr Broomhead went…).
Got a link for that?
this one?
http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/9725668.Steven_Broomhead_to_return_as_chief_executive/?ref=rss
More specifically ,his role on the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership Board alongside Simon Blackburn . A very busy bloke indeed.