Southam News: LOCAL COUNCILS SPEND OVER £1 MILLION OPPOSING HIGH-SPEED RAIL

How Nine Local Authorities Are Spending £1,175,000 to Oppose High-Speed Rail

Local councils are spending over £1million of taxpayers’ money to oppose the Government’s plans for high-speed rail in spite of cuts and government guidelines, according to research by Graham Evans, Member of Parliament for Weaver Vale.

Mr Evans has complained to local government finance watchdog the Audit Commission about potential breaches of spending rules:

· Local authorities have allocated a total of £1,175,000 to the cause. - 1

· This ‘fighting fund’ is the equivalent to the council tax paid by 1,000 households. - 2

· The ‘fighting fund’ is run by 51m3, the anti high-speed rail lobbying group set up by seventeen local authorities. - 3

· The nine councils known to be contributing public money to the ‘fighting fund’ are Aylesbury Vale District Council, Buckinghamshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, Chiltern District Council, London Borough of Hillingdon, South Buckinghamshire District Council, Warwickshire County Council, Warwick District Council and Wycombe District Council.

The local authorities have also allocated council officers’ time, legal support and other material support, which, to date, is impossible to value.

Mr Evans believes the councils’ spending has contravened strict rules on local government publicity and lobbying set out by Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles earlier this year.

The rules state that councils should not run campaigns using taxpayers’ money to influence the view of the public on a particular public policy - 4, potentially making the expenditure illegal.

Mr Evans commented: “This is a disgraceful misuse of public money. Councils know the rules and have wilfully broken them to suit their own political ambitions.

High-speed rail is the biggest step forward any government has taken to tackle the problem of the North-South divide.

My constituents need jobs and growth above all else. They are deeply disturbed that southern councils are paying to keep the North poorer.”

1. The following figures were retrieved from Freedom of Information requests and published council budgets:

2. In England in 2011-12, the average council tax (Band D) is £1,196 pa (source: Department for Communities and Local Government 23rd March 2011).

3. The 51m group is made up of 17 local councils who have formed an anti high-speed rail consortium. The members are: Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council, Chiltern District Council, South Bucks District Council, Wycombe District Council, London Borough of Hillingdon, Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, Lichfield District Council, South Northants District Council, Warwick District Council, North Warwickshire Borough Council, Warwickshire County Council, Stratford-on-Avon District Council, Leicestershire County Council, Harborough District Council and Three Rivers District Council.

4. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Recommended Practice on Local Council Publicity states: “Local authorities should not use public funds to mount publicity campaigns whose primary purpose is to persuade the public to hold a particular view on a question of policy.”

5. The High Speed Rail link enjoys cross party support and was a manifesto commitment of all three main parties at the General Election, who received a combined share of the vote of 88%.

Mr Evans has produced a dossier on the spending which highlights councils such as Warwickshire County Council: