BECA

Press Release

Subject:	Winter Gardens Scapegoat
Date:	2 January 2005
By:	Bournemouth Conservatives on Bournemouth Council
Reference:	BCG/JB/01.05-A

Bournemouth's Lib Dem Council is poised to make its biggest U-turn to date and has carefully lined up a scapegoat to take the blame.

Having fought the previous Conservative administration all the way to the ballot box over the sale of the Winter Gardens and promised the people of Bournemouth that they would save it, refurbish it and then reopen it, they are now poised to demolish it.

The Conservatives are amazed that the Lib Dems, who won the elections that put them into power on a series of promises to 'save' the Winter Gardens, are about to renege on these same promises having already reversed the fully funded plans for a comprehensive approach to all the town's venues. There seems to be no properly thought out long-term strategy, except a very narrow view to abandon anything that was put in place by the Conservatives and to deal with each challenge on a venue by venue basis as it comes up. Not only is this a process that is bound to fail, but it is also a much higher risk approach which is likely to cost the residents of Bournemouth much, much more in the longer-term.

Former Leader of the Council, Conservative Cllr Bob Chapman said, 'To make matters worse, the Lib Dems have just spent another £60,000 of Council taxpayers' money on a second report that tells them exactly what the Conservatives have been saying for the last 6 or 7 years - that there is no financially viable future for the former concert hall however much money is thrown at it.' He added, 'The tragedy is that in the meantime the funding and improvements which we lined up for Bournemouth's other venues has been chucked aside with little chance of it being replaced, except by the council tax payer.'

Rather than admit that they conned the electorate by their rash and opportunist promises to save the concert hall, the Lib Dems are now going to ditch their responsibilities and give the 'Friends of the Winter Gardens' just 2 months to come up with the £ 6-8 M needed to fund the renovation instead. No doubt when these private supporters, to whom the Lib Dems promised so much, fail to raise this vast sum or are unable to present a robust enough business plan, the Lib Dems will cry their usual crocodile tears and say that they have done everything possible to save the hall. Presumably they will then say that the failure is not their fault but that of the supporters who could not make it work.

To compound this mismanagement, the Lib Dems continue to sell low profile and irreplaceable assets such as car parks and Bournemouth's Yellow Buses in order to fund their latest eye-catching and expensive initiatives, led by their proposed replacement for the Winter Gardens. It seems incredible that the Lib Dems never mentioned any of this in their long and detailed election manifesto just 18 months ago - they are now hoping that the residents of Bournemouth will believe their latest line that this is in fact all part of their, up to now, secret cultural plan to offset the excesses of Bournemouth's bars and nightclubs.

The Conservatives will continue to remind the residents of our town about the shabby way these issues are being dealt with by Bournemouth's Lib Dem Council and how much this strategy for failure will cost all of us in the longer term.

For further details please contact:-

Cllr John Beesley
Bournemouth Conservatives
on Bournemouth Council

Tel. 01202 762403
Mobile 07860 391219
email john.beesley@bournemouth.gov.uk