ON Monday November 24, the lead story in the Echo was a demand by Cllr Ben Grower for heads to roll over the surf reef fiasco.
The council has ‘form’ with contracts and the latest failure to ensure compliance comes as no surprise.
The failure to draw up an effective lease on the Imax is notorious and the cost to Bournemouth in lost facilities and rentals would seem to be incalculable.
Anyone who wishes to see the advertised camera obscura in the Square will be unlucky, because it seems there was no effective obligation on the leaseholder to provide the facility.
The surf reef is just the latest in a string of failures on the part of officers and councillors to ensure value for council tax payers.
Cllr Grower is absolutely right and the response by Cllr Beverley Dunlop is straight out of Toytown. If she thinks that local businesses are “thriving” because of the surf reef and breezily dismisses the failure to get it finished on time or on budget one can only guess at the reaction later on if things, as they usually do, go from bad to worse.
I can understand why Bourne-mouth council wanted a transformation director at £101,000 a year, among whose responsibilities is “procurement value for money”.
I just hope they have provided him with a magic wand.
Tony Williams, Warnford Road, Bournemouth
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