Labour To Build "Councillors Palace"

The new Labour / Independent and Conservative Administration have outlined its intention to build a new council HQ at the cost of £29m.

Since Labour became the main party in an alliance with the Independent and Conservative Groups on Falkirk Council announcements and initiatives have been difficult to find. The constant stream of press releases quoting various spokespersons have all related to projects and policies introduced by the previous SNP Administration thus begging the question, what are Labour planning?

The answer came at the Policy and Resources Committee on 14 August where it was revealed that officers of the council have been instructed to draw up proposals to build a new council HQ at the cost of £29m.

Councillors were told that an upgrade would cost around £15m and that the "best value option was a new build on a single site".

The news was received with shock by the SNP members of the committee who reacted with a series of questions, none of which were answered by the Labour leader of the council, Linda Gow.

SNP Group Leader, David Alexander produced figures that showed the value of the current Municipal Buildings site to be £3.7m if sold for housing and £9m if sold for retail. Pointing out that this meant there was a potential shortfall of between £20m and £26m depending on which option of disposal was favoured by the new administration.

In a fiery debate the Labour led administration was described as seeking to build a "councillor's palace" by non aligned Independent Councillor, Robert Spears. However, it was the contribution of SNP leader, David Alexander, who had Labour rocked to their collective core.

Said Councillor Alexander,

"We have waited three months on any kind of announcement from the new rainbow administration in Falkirk and when we did get one it was a stunner.

While the SNP spent our time building new factories and offices for business, new schools for our young people and new community facilities for the community Labour want to build for themselves a new council HQ.

I pressed the leader of the council, Linda Gow, on where this money would be coming from, to no avail. I pressed her to state what was her administrations view on what the current HQ site would be used for, to no avail. I pressed her on the method of funding the new WQ as the SNP want to see public investment in schools not plush offices for councillors, to no avail.

There were no answers from the Labour leader who appears more and more like a rabbit caught in the headlights in trying to deal with the responsibilities of power."

Council officers have been instructed to prepare more detailed costings and proposals before bringing the matter back to committee for direction.