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Anger at £2m loan from cash-crisis council



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Published Date: 30 September 2008
By Frank Urquhart
CASH-strapped Aberdeen City Council was embroiled in a row yesterday after it was revealed it may provide a £2 million loan to bail out the city's main conference and entertainment venue.
A confidential report, to be discussed by councillors today, recommends that the authority should approve the loan to the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre as the council-owned venue struggles to deal with £16 million of debt.

In 2005-6 the centre was given a £7.5 million development loan by the council, which already owned 81 per cent of the business. The authority then spent £315,000 on the remaining shares and took over the centre.

It has now been revealed that the centre's board of directors have asked for short-term financial support to further assist the venue. And the report by senior council officials warns: "No action is not an option."

Willie Young, the secretary of the Labour group, condemned the proposed loan at a time when the council was facing £50 million in spending cuts.





The full article contains 179 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 29 September 2008 10:20 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Guga II,

Rockall 30/09/2008 04:05:12
No wonder they want to try and penalise motorists, they are trying to steal money from wherever they can, and motorists are an easy target.
2

Voldemort,

Edinburgh 30/09/2008 04:34:32
1 - Absolutely - they are the new highwaymen !

I wonder if they have fired any staff yet ? I reckon I could find them £50 million in about 5 minutes flat ... all you need to do in any council building is walk through it - fire 2 out of three of every one of the useless cretins and tell the rest of them to get on with it and the unions to stick it up their jaxy !

If the remaining third want to strike so be it ... I doubt if any of us would notice the difference it is a long time since any council has had the public interest at heart. Content with working against us rather than serving us they are. When your government no longer works with it's people for it's people it is time for vast, sweeping and monumental change.
3

mobocaster,

Aberdeen 30/09/2008 10:26:09
How many times are they going to have to bail-out this particular white elephant I wonder?
4

57vintage,

Bridge of Don 30/09/2008 10:29:27
No comments from the ususal rabid, playground-insulting Nats?

I wonder if that's anything to do with the fact that Aberdeen is run (prety crappily, in my experience) by an alliance of Nats and Lib Dems?

Just a thought, like.
5

mobocaster,

Aberdeen 30/09/2008 10:31:25
#2 - Most of the staff currently under threat in the council are the ones who are least likely to have had a hand in this wastage. Many have also been significantly underpaid for a very long time. Which is of course just part of the council's problem as they resolutely ignored the problem for years, until it became absolutely unavioidable.

I think you can be pretty certain that the senior staff most culpable will be the very last to feel any heat & if they do go, are quite likely to cushion their fall nicely.

 

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