Spending Money for the Sake of Spending?
(All photos from The Friends of Queen’s Market (FoQM) website)
Its got to be said, the future of Queen’s Market has dogged the council for decades. In an attempt to improve the market environment, roughly £1m was spent of a trader-led refurbishment two decades ago. The impact was negligible.
The site has been earmarked for redevelopment and then the plans have been shelved.
But the market remains. And it is popular. And it is still dingy and still a bit on the dirty side.
In steps Mayor Fiaz with a plan to spend more money on the market, though quite what she intended to achieve with all this extra spending in anyone’s guess.
Fiaz has lauded her ‘co-create’ process; an approach that should engage ‘stakeholders’ with council decision makers with a view to getting something that the people actually want. We offer a word of warning about this. It can also be a process whereby council bureaucrats push an idea that they are already committed to and the ‘consultation/co-creation process is merely window dressing.
Let’s see what FoQM say.
“Tonnes of public money had gone to private consultants who have delivered nothing that local shoppers and traders have asked for. Traders, shoppers, shopkeepers and local people put their trust in the Council and its elected representatives when they say they were cajoled into participating in the co-create process. Where locals asked for a refurbished market roof and flooring, officers reassured them, but now years later they are lumbered with pigeon-netting that pigeons can still get into, credit card toilets, and now this wood and tin monstrosity. The Council’s consultants then hurried this through a planning application. Locals were not told nor signposted to it, and now we are in many ways in a worse position than before, and £1million down. The Council’s co-creation process has been extremely demoralising for those who took part in it, and it has broken trust with citizens whose collective taxes pay for the wages of the decision makers, making a mockery of our public finances.”
At a time when the Department of Communities and Local Government is breathing down your neck because of overspending, it seems strange that Mayor Fiaz would blow another £1m on replacement canopies that nobody seems to need or want.
One stallholder is quoted by FoQM, “I am livid. We participated in a process that was prejudicial to begin with (by excluded many local voices), and now we’re stuck with something that didn’t need replacing. This new wooden thing looks clunky, over structured, and pigeons can easily perch underneath it – this will cause further issues. The council could have easily just renovated the old canopies, kept the structure, updated the wood panels, replaced the lighting wells, painted it properly and saved money. Instead they spent months disrupting market trade, blew £1million – and now this? We’ve been kicked in the teeth”, says local shopper of 30 years. “It’s a disgrace on all fronts.”
The decision, in a time of financial crisis, seems bizarre. The mayor’s willingness to alienate stall-holders, shopkeepers and customers alike seems politically courageous* given that the Green St wards and Boleyn ward must be amongst the most vulnerable in the borough to a challenge from Newham Independents.
* From Yes Prime Minister:
Sir Frederick: [...] there are four words to be included in a proposal if you want it thrown out.
Sir Humphrey: Complicated. Lengthy. Expensive. Controversial. And if you want to be really sure that the Minister doesn't accept it, you must say the decision is "courageous".
Bernard: And that's worse than "controversial"?
Sir Humphrey: Oh, yes! "Controversial" only means "this will lose you votes". "Courageous" means "this will lose you the election"