Over the years we have brought you our website where we have tried to show how we feel that Luton Borough Council thinks itself above both local, and indeed, national guidelines on planning and financial controls. We have tried to show how – when it comes to planning applications regarding Luton Airport – they are just passed through Committee.
Now it seems that anything that looks like it can fly is also exempt: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-64789487
Being loose with taxpayers’ money isn’t just restricted to lending vast sums of money to Luton Rising as inside the Council offices, money is disappearing fast, with fraudulent requests for money and outright theft. Last week, a newspaper reported on a Crown Court case, where the Council just handed over £44,000 without carrying out any checks: https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/bedfordshire-news/more-40000-defrauded-luton-borough-8201867
Last year the Council was still investigating a theft of money that the Council was looking after, where £1.2m went missing in similar circumstances : https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/bedfordshire-news/luton-borough-council-mystery-what-6484080
Impacts for these payments, both environmental and financial, are given lip service by the controlling political group, and the senior council officers who think they know best.
Our collective flabbers were well and truly ghasted at the comments of Finance Portfolio Holder Councillor Roche:- “money stolen from the Council is money stolen from the residents of Luton”
But the DART built with public money to the tune of £300 million, and the Development Consent Order application at around or in excess of £50 million.
The real figures, who knows?
There are 20 Voting Wards in Luton, divide £350 million by that figure, and you have £17.5 million for every Ward in the town. Has this money been stolen from the financially pressed struggling, and deprived residents of Luton, just as much as the money mentioned in the article?
Dear Reader, you decide.