New Council Offices Leaflet

09/11/18: I recently received a leaflet about the proposed new council offices, which looks like it is from the local council, but is in fact from the South Warwickshire Conservatives. If you have received it too, check the small print. The leaflet is misleading, disingenuous and just plain wrong.

They claim that 37% of housing approvals are affordable housing. I have Warwick District Council’s own housing monitoring report, which shows that the average percentage of housing built which is affordable in the last 7 years is only 28%. The Council’s target is 40% and they have missed that target in 6 out of 7 years.

There are 2400 people on the housing waiting list locally, 700 statutory homeless and we are the worst district in the West Midlands for rough sleeping. We need more affordable, social and council homes.

The leaflet also claims that new council offices will save them £300,000 a year, but they don’t mention the £3 million funding shortfall in project, according to their own viability study. They also don’t mention the £3 million in lost Section 106 payments for local infrastructure, which the public will have to pay for. Nor do they mention the cost of parking displacement, which is currently looking like £1.7 million.

There are alternatives. The District Council could share with the County Council in Shire Hall in Warwick or part of the Leamington Town Hall. They could lease out part of their current offices.

If you want to save money, why not support a Unitary Authority, which would save between £12 million to £17 million? I have long supported a unitary authority, the previous MP Chris White did and so did the Conservative County Council candidates in 2017.

Please support the campaign against the new council offices and please sign and share the petition at: http://mattwestern.org/campaign/no-to... #RiversideHouse