Accrington Web - Poor Clayton!

I feel really sorry for the people of Clayton-le-moors. Not long ago HBC announced that it had secured £11 million in grants to fund its ‘Elevate’ Scheme, to regenerate rundown areas of the borough. Which translates as a whopping 2.2 million pound windfall for each of the boroughs five towns. Wow! Fabulous! Fantastic! For other areas of the borough, that is.

You see, the slice of the £11,000,000.00 pie allotted to Clayton-le-moors by the Council is a paltry £75,000.

Which equates to roughly two thirds of one percent of the money available. There is also the danger that most of that piddling amount will be squandered by HBC in a further rash of pointless feasibility studies.

Not surprisingly, people are just the teensiest bit miffed that, yet again, HBC has handed them the sh*tty end of the stick. This has resulted in the second public call in five months for the resignation of Nigel Rix.

Defending Mr Rix, Councillor Rennie Pinder is reported as saying “You can’t hire and fire people just because they made a mistake.” Excuse me, Councillor Pinder, and please correct me if I am wrong here, but it has always been my understanding that one of the prime reasons for dismissing someone is precisely because they make mistakes. Particularly when those mistakes affect the lives of thousands of people.

When asked if Mr. Rix could be given a written warning, Councillor Janet Storey said “We cannot put a proposal like that forward because we are governed by a code of conduct, and could give Mr Rix grounds for constructive dismissal.”

What a mess! And, moreover, a mess that looks as though it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.