Last updated at 16:36, Monday, 29 October 2012

COPELAND Borough Council has come under fire for spending almost £15,000 on town centre car park repairs – months before announcing its possible closure.

An Evening Mail investigation revealed the council spent £14,870.40 resurfacing the Lancashire Road car park, in Millom.

The resurfacing work was carried out in August this year – two months before the council announced its £2.6m budget cut proposals, which included removing Millom, Haverigg and Bootle car parks from its books.

Under the proposals the borough-owned car parks, including Lancashire Road, are to be offered to community groups as a Community Asset Transfer.

But Copeland has warned that the car parks will be closed if a taker is not found.

The Lancashire Road car park was closed for two weeks while the work – including resurfacing, creation of new spaces and dedicated disabled spaces – was carried out.

But Councillor Joan Hobbs said the money could have been better spent elsewhere in the town, such as keeping the Lancashire Road toilets open. She said: “It’s not good value for money, in my opinion. It’s not even as if they did the whole car park, they just did patches and filled in a couple of potholes.

“Yet they wouldn’t spend the money needed to keep the toilets open.

“Instead of spending £15,000 on filling a couple of potholes they’d have been better keeping the toilets open, benefiting a lot of people.

“I think they’ve been ripped off. If they’d have resurfaced the whole thing then it might have been justified but those little bits are neither here nor there. In light of all the things that they’re cutting back, and the little that they put into Millom, they should make a gesture and give it to us to use.”

In response, Ian Curwen, communications manager for Copeland Borough Council, said: “The resurfacing work was carried out because it needed to be done.

“It wasn’t carried out with budget cuts or making it more appealing for Community Asset Transfer in mind.

“People may say they’d rather we spent the money on something else, but we’ve got to maintain our assets, regardless of what may or may not happen to it in the future.”

First published at 16:28, Monday, 29 October 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk