News emerging this week that Labour has now surged the Slough Borough Council debt pile to over £500m comes as no surprise and proves how out of control the Labour administration are after years of over-spending and waste on failed schemes in the town, such as the disastrous Bus Station.
The debt equates to just under an eye-watering £12,000 per household in the Borough. This debt – which has grown by over £100m in just a year – shows how little regard the Labour leadership under Cllr Swindlehurst have for the next generation in Slough – the ones who will have to pick up the bill in years to come.
Even worse than the debt is being accumulated – spending £11m on a warehouse in Bradford and over £8m on a cinema in Basingstoke. They have no faith in Slough, and their priorities are not those of residents.
Taking these two examples alone, Labour could have bought over 40 family homes in Slough to help ease the housing list – or bought to invest in a new unit to support our homeless. Instead Cllr. Swindlehurst chooses to play fire at just the same time they are publishing bad-news reports about the potential impact of Brexit.
Our position has always been clear - if investment is made, it must be in Slough, and it must be in line with resident priorities. The facts here are clear – debt is debt – and just as the last Labour government did, Cllr Swindlehurst and his administration are just as out of control as they were. It is the next generation of Slough taxpayers that will suffer from his financial incompetence.
Cllr. Wayne Strutton - Group Leader, Slough Conservative Councillors
