THE Leader of Taunton Deane Council challenges the opponents of the merger with West Somerset to match the £3 million per annum, which he claims the merger will save. Here goes!

Firstly, he has no chance of making these savings, since they are predicated on replacing staff with an untested IT system, a proposal which has been tried before and always fails – remember ‘South West One’? It also depends on merging with a solvent authority – West Somerset are insolvent and hoping Taunton Deane taxpayers will save them from bankruptcy.

We wouldn’t even get back the £10 million start-up costs, which the taxpayers of Taunton Deane and West Somerset would have to pick up.

But there is a realistic way of making the savings projected in Councillor Williams’ fantasies.

Taunton Deane owns property worth around £65 million, currently generating 0.9 per cent return. Efficiently run, that return could be increased to four per cent, producing around £2.6 million per annum.

The Conservative leadership recently invested £3 million of assets for the Council’s Direct Labour Organisation in West Park, Wellington, while perversely outsourcing 20 per cent of the DLO’s work.

What would we say about a private company which invested a lot of money into its buildings and equipment, then paid another company to do a lot of the work that could be done in-house?

Another example: the council closed a car park at Castle Green, which brought in a net income of £150,000 per annum, and is about to do the same at Coal Orchard. 

Another example of poor business management is the loss sustained in the investment in the Nursery Gardens in Stoke Road.

We have consistently been voicing our concerns with this misjudged merger in and out of the council chamber.

We think progress comes from innovation, which comes from research, and a better use of our money would be investment in R&D in health, digital technology, renewable energy, agriculture and education.

We have an ideal opportunity in the derelict Firepool site.

Local government should be the drivers of this initiative, science is the greatest achievement and enabler of humanities but to succeed we need to have competency, vision and drive, which is scarce in the current administration.

CLLR HABIB FARBAHI
Lib Dem