WILL the town council's current Best Value review at last expose the true cost of out town hall to ratepayers?
Our town councillors act like the proud heirs of Margaret Thatcher when they limit the grant to the farmers' market to £100, while the rural economy is on the floor; when they advance the Tavistock Citizen's Advice bureau £1,200, while that charity brings £338,000 of new money into the Tavistock area per year; when they brush off the Pelican Youth Café project. Quite rightly, there should be no 'sacred cows' when it comes to rigorously applying public money.
Yet in financing our town hall, our councillors act as if they are Old Labour!
As I've always understood it, the town hall continues to cost Tavistock ratepayers over £100,000 per annum, or about £300 every day of the year.
The scale of this discreet subsidy, the open-ended commitment for so many years, and the way it is applied, creating a 'sacred cow', takes me back to pre-Thatcher times. We could be living in the Socialist Republic of Tavistock! Ironically, it has taken a New Labour government to force this Best Value review on our town council.
Will the review lay open the finances of the town hall for the first time, so that Tavistock ratepayers can see what's been going on? Will all alternative uses and suggestions be set out for us — however radical or unpalatable to our town council? Will we be allowed sight of the unexpurgated town hall review?
If they really are Old Labour as I suspect, we'll only see what the town council want us to see. If they were the radical Thatcherites they pretend to be, they won't continue to treat the town hall as a 'sacred cow'.
Every pound saved could go to further support community projects like the farmers' market, our CAB and the Pelican youth café for example.
Alex Wood
4 Kilworthy Hill
Tavistock