The Labour administration has borrowed another £56 million, taking Ipswich’s debt to an astonishing £187 million. The Conservative opposition group, led by Cllr Ian Fisher, has previously raised serious concerns over this, especially as the administration refuses our every request to disclose what they intend to spend this money on.
It has been reported that this will be spent on purchasing an unspecified property in the town. The local Labour Leader say that this investment in property will generate future income in the face of income reductions from other sources.
Cllr Ian Fisher said “£56m is such an enormous amount of money, unfortunately the Conservative opposition Group is not able to reverse this decision as it happened in November. Whilst we keep our fingers crossed that the anticipated future income does occur, what Labour will not tell anyone is that if this all goes belly up, then Ipswich Council Tax payers will be liable for this enormous debt pile.”
Deputy Group Leader and finance spokesman, Cllr Eddy Phillips said “Ipswich’s Labour-run Borough Council are taking possession of more and more properties in Ipswich, a form of local ‘nationalisation’ which cannot be healthy on the scale they are undertaking. Who can predict how this may distort the local commercial property market in the future? They are doing this through their arms-length property company but that is not a reasonable excuse carry out deals in secret and with no scrutiny by us, all the Elected Members representing Ipswich residents.”