Report into Tesco £12m

A DETAILED document outlining Bassetlaw Council’s handling of the £12 million it received from Tesco for the former Clinton Maltings site has been released.

The lengthy report - listing no less than 90 receipts - reveals the authority has spent just over £9m since cashing the cheque in 2009.

The biggest expenditure was the council’s commitment to fitting disabled facilities in its social houses across the district, to the tune of £2.4m.

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Another £1.2m was spent on the council’s vehicles and fleet replacement, while more than £1m was spent on maintaining and improving council offices and Worksop and Retford town halls.

This expense included £67,000 towards new internal doors, £76,000 towards replacing windows and £92,000 towards the cost of toilets and disabled facilities at Queen’s Buildings.

Bassetlaw Council leader Simon Greaves, who ordered the report, accused the previous Conservative administration of ‘blowing the budget’.

“The political priorities of the Conservatives were clearly to spend large sums of money on the council’s own buildings, vehicles and internal projects,” he said.

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“It looks to me like the Conservative solution was to throw money at everything with no long term plan for the future.”

“Their policy of spend, spend, spend has left the cupboard bare leaving us to pick up the pieces.”

Coun Greaves said he would have liked to have seen more spent in the community and encouraging outside businesses.

Leader of Bassetlaw’s Conservative group Chris Wanless said the money had been used effectively and nothing had been done out of hand.

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“It’s been spent wisely. There have been a lot of benefits from that money. I do not see anything wrong with it,” he said.

“The money on the town halls was needed after years of neglect. The civic buildings had to be brought up to a suitable state.”

“The new Civic Square among others were already planned in by the Conservative administration.”

A further £862,000 was spent on play areas around the district, including the Canch redevelopment and the introduction of the skate park.

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The relocation of the market to Bridge Street, which has seen a dramatic increase in footfall, cost the council a further £158,000.

He added: “There have been several play areas introduced, including the AdiZone at the Canch, which we spent £70,000 on and Adidas contributed £100,000.”

“I hope Labour continue to bring in outside money.”

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