More problems for the Preston Play Park Group

More Problems For Preston Play Park Group

Hi all, it’s been awhile, about 5 months I think, but that hasn’t dimmed the hits this site is getting, almost 6,000 to-date. People appear to be gently reading through the posts in chronological order, not bad and its good that people are still interested in reading the blogs.

I have been getting private messages and emails on various topics to do with the council and those have all been dealt with in a timely manner, so please forgive me if I say that I feel up-to-date, despite an absence of 5 months!!

I did attend the Council Meeting on Monday evening (08/07/13) for the first time in about 8 months and I have to say the farce hasn’t lessened in any way. The Chairman started by telling everyone that we were all governed by the same ‘Code of Conduct’, she really should have known better. It’s councillors who are ‘governed’ by the Code of Conduct because they are the ones required to sign up to it when they take up office and from this point it went decidedly down hill.

The public are required to abide by the rules that cover council meetings, the problem with that is the council don’t publish those rules anywhere not even on their own web site so nobody knows what those rules are, so If people don't know the rules it simply enables the council to make them up as they go along!!

There was a discussion and vote on a grant to the Play Park, they eventually decided to vote in favour of a grant in an undisclosed sum because the councillor running this private project didn’t know how much of a short fall there would be! Apparently there is a Trustees meeting tonight (Wednesday 10/07) where it will be discussed again and the council will then have an extra-ordinary meeting to put a final figure on any grant they wish to give.

The councillor involved with the Play Park clearly has a financial interest and potential liability connected to the Play Park and therefore has a Prejudicial Interest in that topic and was therefore legally required to declare that interest and leave the room during the course of that debate and vote, she didn’t declare an interest and Instead sat in council throughout and even contributed during the debate, when it came to the vote she said she would prefer not to vote on the subject and abstained, it really is a complete farce!!

The Play Park seems to be getting some attention at the moment so if I can just recap on old ground. This blog was assured by Play Park supporters that the whole village voted for this, so why is it in so much trouble? We did ask for certain information on the Park and the Village Consultation that we were promised had been carried-out, nothing has ever come of that request so we can only conclude that statement wasn’t entirely accurate.

We were originally told (Mid to late 2012) it would cost £144,000, fundraising was going well and work on installation was expected to commence in early 2013. We were recently told via a Facebook page, “Preston the Village” that they now had the money and had an opening date penciled in for 1^st September 2013. In the same post we were also told that there was a short fall in funding of £35,000, it’s now becoming confusing you either have the money or you don’t and how does that affect any opening date? The Play Park Group were hoping to mug the council and Playing fields Charity for the balance, the Parish Council have approved in principle to donate an as yet unspecified amount and we understand the Playing fields Charity have donated or pledged an additional £17,000 (from a council/trustee source which cannot always be trusted) in addition to any previous promise of financial support.

We then have comments on “Preston the Village” that the Park is all ready for go and will be installed soon and everyone will be able to have a swing, wonderful. But hang on a minute, on that same thread we were then told “Unfortunately looking at the quote again the shortfall may be too much” and “We are struggling to get enough money to install the equipment bought by WREN. There is grassmatting, machinery hire, security, labour etc plus 20% VAT. I haven't given up but it doesn't look good. Sorry”. This is quite a serious position, why on earth has equipment been bought when they haven’t got any funds to install it? Actually it would seem there are insufficient funds to get even the basics like rubber/grass matting so what’s going on?

I don’t understand why there are so many major miscalculations and so much misunderstanding and confusion on what should be a relatively straightforward project? I’m sure people have put in a lot of hard work and I applaud that, unfortunately hard work is no substitute for ability and that appears to be the lacking ingredient in the managing of this project along with a distinct lack of business acumen.

If I understand the funding criteria for WREN (there’s no guarantee I do!) they need an assurance that full funding with their donation is in place for the whole project to be completed, i.e. installed and available for use as intended on any application prior to WREN funds being released!! So how has WREN money been spent when it is nowhere near fully funded, the potential consequences are now getting very serious!!

The Play Park Group probably have 3 main options,

1.              Get somebody at the reigns who actually knows what they’re doing.

2.              Cut your cloth to suite your pocket and abandon any grand ideas.

3.              Abandon the project altogether.

The problem with No. 3 is, any funds that are currently held or have been spent to-date will have to be accounted for and where ever possible returned to the donor. Any equipment that has been bought with donated cash will need to be disposed of which may well result in a financial short fall in return to the Donor.

We must not forget the Parish Council and Preston Playing Fields Charity are deeply involved in all of this, we did question the wisdom of a Parish Councillor using the Parish Council name and Charity of which they are a trustee as a financial vehicle and holding account for this project, we were assured that the project was to be entirely privately funded and no public funds would be involved, that was never a realistic position!

I suspect the Parish Council’s name and the Playing Fields Charity name has been peddled to generate grants and funds for this project, otherwise why would you need to be a councillor to do it? If this project is not taken hold of by a competent person(s) there is the risk that it will go badly wrong and reflect poorly on the Parish Council, Charity and village as a whole, it also has the potential to place a heavy financial liability on public funds because of the way it has been organised and handled.

I say “potential” because I don’t know what methods have been used to secure funds/grants but I would think they were donated towards the purchase and installation of equipment, no business or organisation in their right mind would give money to spend on equipment to simply leave to rot away unused.

Simply purchasing the equipment would not satisfy the contract it must also be installed and available for use as intended in order to complete the agreement, if it is not installed and available for use there is potentially a breach of contract and the donor would therefore be entitled to ask for the return of any donation in order that it may be made available to some other deserving cause. If the Play Park Group has spent that money and therefore unable to return the funds it could fall to the Parish Council (if funds have been raised in their name and after reviewing the application criteria I suspect it has) to refund the money and that could be a substantial loss to our public funds.

This is looking increasing like most projects that the Parish Council gets involved with, a grand idea which sounds simple so they plough ahead without any risk analysis, skilled project management and no plan, just something on the back of a fag packet. The end result is inevitably a substantial loss to the public purse of Preston. We have seen this same scenario play out a number of times with Preston Parish Council and the end result is always a net loss to the parish, to date amounting to 10’s of thousands of public pounds over the last 6 years.

Isn't it about time the Parish Council developed a strong policy to control this kind of behaviour by individual councillors running their own private schemes in order to eliminate this kind of risk to the public funds of the Parish?  

Is there any brave person who can take hold of this mess and turn it around? I really do hope there is.