IT is disappointing that Councillor Nick Wallis has become so desperate as to blame the Friends of Darlington Library for the council not being able to cut the grass (Echo, Oct 6).
He says that the Friends’ legal action will be costing the council £33,000 a month!
From the start, the council has been challenged as to the correctness of its financial assumptions. It appears that the saving associated with the move away from Crown Street does not stack up and in no way justifies the £1.8m required to make the Dolphin Centre acceptable.
Had the council progressed its own Plan B of staying put and making savings, it would by now have banked significant savings instead of incurring further costs.
The Friends organisation was established with an expectation to support a reduced library service within the existing facilities – not to have to frustrate a wholly inappropriate relocation agenda.
We would much prefer to be supporting Crown Street and the mobile library in positive relations with the council.
We have offered many times to work collaboratively with the council to look for a better way and have been blanked every time – but the offer remains open.
The council has many areas of cost and responsibility and a binary association like the one drawn by Cllr Wallis is wholly inappropriate. Earlier this year a £2m budget overspend was declared in part of the council’s financial plans pointing to either poor budget setting or inadequate expenditure control.
Perhaps putting its own house in order would be a better use of council time rather than trying to find someone else to blame.
Paul Howell, Darlington
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