VIDEO: WARRINGTON Borough Council Chief Executive Prof. Steven Broomhead says he remains positive about all the council’s investments.
Despite the council accounts still not being signed off, the controversy around the cost of shares in Redwood Bank, the collapse of Together Energy and a further £60m investment involving borrowed money into a 4th Solar Energy Company, Prof Broomhead says the council is not gambling and only making investments after “due diligence and a lot of evidence.”
Following the latest investment in a solar energy company based in Doncaster, yet to be built, Prof Broomhead said: “Investment in green energy and solar energy is a wise investment and will help provide net zero resources for the council.”
Without the borrowing, which provides a return of circa £20m Prof. Broomhead says the council would have no choice but to make further cuts to front-line services.
He added that it was only a “small number of people” who were making objections to the council’s investments, although he did accept the council does sometimes get things wrong.
But he remained “positive” about the council investments and had not got any of them wrong. Although Together Energy was still going through administration it should remain in balance without a loss to the council.
With regard to investments, Prof Broomhead said: “We have nothing to hide and nothing to be concerned about.”
While the Government had held talks with the council, there had been no intervention like in Slough, Croyden and Liverpool.
Prof Broomhead said the Government was “happy” with the way the council had gone about its business and decision-making, planning and governance.
He concluded the interview, as Vice Chairman of Warrington Wolves, reflecting on a “very trying season” but one the club could learn from and following strong recruitment, next season would be a good one.
But one of the key concerns was getting big crowds back to the stadium with the cost of living crisis hitting people’s disposable incomes.
3 Comments
Some of these statements do not bear close inspection, though. That is why the government has expressed concerns about the strategy and why Moody’s has yet again downgraded the council’s credit rating. Together Energy has been a disaster whatever Mr Broomhead says. And there is something very off about Redwood, again whatever he might say about ‘due diligence’.
The big issue is that he doesn’t have any skin in the game. It doesn’t even look like there is a way to remove him.
The man is totally deluded, obviously in denial and living in some parallel universe. Talks utter nonsense and expects people to suck it up and accept it. The sooner we can be rid of him and the current WBC exec the sooner we have a chance of avoiding bankruptcy.
If the council has “nothing to hide”, why do they never answer Freedom of Information questions about the investments? Why is all the detail kept away from the public?
I can accept a degree of ‘commercial sensitivity’, but the reality is that WBC have been secretive in the extreme.
As for the repeated claim that we’re £20 million p.a. better off – if there was hard evidence for this I think we’d have seen it by now.