Labour made an announcement in ‘The Bolton News’ on Friday 2nd October that they were making a one-off allocation of £500,000 towards repairs to roads and pavements in residential areas. This is to be paid for from the Dividend from the Council’s part ownership of Manchester Airport. 

This is actually the SAME £500,000 that was agreed in the Council budget in February – so they are double counting. We understand that they tried to get this in the press on Thursday 1st October (which just happened to be polling day in the by-election in Crompton Ward).

The other problem with their announcement is that this money was actually provided following the success of the Liberal Democrats in getting it included in the Budget as part of an amendment which I moved, which was seconded by another Liberal Democrat! Labour had nothing extra to help road repairs in their budget plans.

So not just double counting, but also trying to claim the credit for what others have done. Still, I suppose that is politics! 

(For the record, the full text of our successful amendment to the Council’s Budget can be found on this site – see page ‘Lib Dem Budget’)

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