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We welcome back a fine St.Albans institution - Chartered Engineer , resident and diver , a PoolTooSmall stalwart from the start , Nicolas Haran.
He again questions, as we all do, the financial basis of the NEWBODGE Project.
SIR:-WESTMINSTER LODGE SPORTS COMPLEX - FINANClAL DISASTER.
Do we need more gyms and spinning studios in St. Albans? We are over supplied with gyms and spinning studios - the present exercise machine facility at Westminster Lodge is not fully used and the council plans to build us a much bigger, more expensive one.
Do we want more restaurants and cafes in St. Albans when those we have are finding it very difficult to survive?
Ask yourself the question “Where are the people coming from who will fully use the proposed sports complex?” Our council has already admitted they got the swimming pool sums wrong. I guess the overall sports complex attendance figures in the business plan are wrong too.
Where is the wisdom of borrowing most of the £25 million our council needs? Interest rates are very low and can only go up. £25 million would do nicely to fill the council spending reduction required by central government. Inflation will be very bad as we still have to pay-off the banks financial excesses.
The Lib Democrats councillors and the chosen developers may well be the only people who want the new sports complex. Do we want a London Millennium Dome of extravagance in St. Albans? Do the people St. Albans need to find the £25 million cost when there are so many worthy needs and projects desperate for any money at all?
A straw poll suggests the number of people in favour of the project is probably limited to the political party pushing it through and their selected developers.
Most of St. Albans voters agree that this project should be allowed to fade away before it ruins us financially. Please ask your councillor to end this project. Thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Nicolas Haran
(Chartered Engineer) |
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