Call for Council transparency on budget underspend

We were told that closing both Brymbo and Gresford Libraries would save the Council £92k; cutting numerous bus services, thus isolating the most vulnerable, is due to save £495k; reducing the grass cutting to just twice a year is meant to save £256k; and Plas Madoc was closed post haste with no assistance to the new community run group. All of these things could have been kept for another year, providing a full twelve months to develop other funding streams and set up community groups with the money that has now miraculously appeared.

£1.5m is not a small amount of money which can be found down the back of a sofa. Even in an organisation with a budget of several hundreds of millions of pounds, during times of austerity one would expect the lead member to ensure that each pound is accounted for.

Cllr Malcolm King, Labour, lead member for finance, must give a robust and honest explanation as to why he allowed this public money to go unaccounted while the public were calling out for assistance to maintain their valued public services.