HOW MUCH ?

Fenland District Council records £172 million worth of assets in their most recent accounts. Where do they come from ?

In 1974 FDC didn’t have a bean until it was donated the assets of the local urban and district councils. Prior to local government reorganisation, many local councils hurriedly built leisure centres or public halls which guaranteed the benefit of their assets was invested in that community. They spent the money rather than passing it on. Unfortunately not so Chatteris. By any account, they just passed the lot to Fenland Hall. Those assets must contribute a significant proportion of what is now £172 million.

It is said that prior to 1974 the clerk to the urban district council had been shrewdly buying up land and buildings on behalf of the Council. Certainly Chatteris owned a lot of land. What’s more much of the rented housing stock FDC operated had been constructed by the benevolent owner of the engineering works, and subsequently given to the Council.

So how much were these considerable assets given to FDC worth in 1974, or even now ? Records are strangely illusive. Chatteris Town Council insists they don’t have any records. OK - the UDC was their predecessor body. FDC apparently stored the documents in a cellar until they were ‘lost in a flood’.

Now these records represent important historical archives. Bizarrely I can easily find out who was granted the deed to a field in Chatriz in 1369, but not what happened in 1974! Not even the County Record Office at Shirehall have any information available to cast illumination on the mystery.

Recently FDC has sold off one of their inherited pieces of land in Chatteris for over £1/2 million, refuses to commit any of the money back to Chatteris, and disdainfully wash their hands over another former valuable Chatteris asset entrusted to them, Grove House.

I’ve always believed that it is the duty of local district councillors to fight for a fair deal for the community they represent. But not so apparently. During a recent some what heated debate recently at Chatteris Town Council, Cllr Colbert reminded District Councillor Murphy that it was his job to fight for Chatteris, and he angrily denied it. Rather than contradict him, the 2 other Chatteris District Councillors present observed that “there are only 4 of us out of a total of 40 of them". So much for the ‘winning team’ approach promoted by the Tories in the May elections !

It is small wonder that Chatteris has been so ill served by FDC for so many years, and has so little to show for FDC’s custodianship, if our councillors have so little backbone ! What hope is there ?

Walter Burnett is a pen name.