Cheshire East Council has announced that a new matter has been referred to Cheshire Police for their consideration.
Kath O'Dwyer, acting chief executive of Cheshire East Council, said: "As a result of a targeted, forensic audit of historical land transactions, I can confirm that we have now referred a further matter to Cheshire Police who will consider whether or not there are grounds to investigate.
"It would not be appropriate for me to expand on this further and, therefore, there will be no further comment from the council at this time."
There are several ongoing police investigations. In March 2018 Cheshire East Council announced that two matters had been referred to Cheshire Police to determine whether an investigation is required.
One of the referrals was in connection with the purchase of land at Cledford Lane in Middlewich for the development of the Council's new Environmental Hub whilst the Council declined to confirm what the second matter was in connection with.
These latest referrals are in addition to four other matters which are being investigated after being referred to the police by Cheshire East Council. These investigations are regarding the awarding of contracts to CoreFit, the former Council Leader's physiotherapist, the deliberate manipulation of air quality data, the Council's decision to allocate £70,000 of public funds to Berkeley Academy in Wistaston for a car park and another land purchase.
Comments
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Will this be a re run of the Lyme Green episode?
Cheshire Constabulary should open a new "shop" at & in Westfields. Many advantages - no need for cars with blue lights speeding around the Cheshire lanes the "suspects" will be on immediate hand for interview, documentation & IT equipment within a corridor stroll, everyone keeps dry and warm and will save £000s on police pay & time.
Everyone a winner!
Whilst on the subject, have the police still nothing to report on its various investigations relating to alleged misdeeds at CEC?
Just what is it they're doing wrong to have so many complaints and investigations made against them ?
Not only are they incompetent, but they're pretty useless as well because any investigation by the police costs money, and guess where that money comes from ? Yes, The Ratepayers / Taxpayers, YOU and ME, as usual !!
Along with my fellow independent councillors at Cheshire East, I am supporting a campaign to change the way the Council is run. This latest announcement, bringing the total number of investigations at Cheshire East to six, makes it even more important that our campaign is successful.
Under the existing Cabinet System, the Leader of the Council chooses the Chairs of the four Scrutiny Committees (they are members of the same political group as the Leader and have the final say on any agenda items; they also receive an additional financial allowance for this role).
To give an example of how this system isn’t working, Cabinet recently committed to undertake a Parking Review, as part of its Local Transport Strategy; however, it also has a Low Emissions Strategy which states:
“CEC parking standards will be strictly enforced. This means that parking spaces in principal towns and key service centres will be restricted. This will help to reduce the traffic impacts of new developments as far as possible.”
So it would appear that whatever the outcome of the Parking Review and whatever the feedback from residents, a decision to restrict parking provision has already been made.
If we can get 15,000 signatures Borough-wide, we can force a referendum on this issue. Please support our petition at change.org/p/changecheshireeast
Thank you,
Craig
To make it clear how absurd this argument was, later in the Conference the director responsible for Finance noted that the Council's General Reserves were extremely low compared to its commitments.....
Like it or not, Cheshire East's poor governance does affect front-line services, things like mending roads, providing car parks, etc. The only way to change this is to get CE to operate to higher standards of transparency. To do this we need everyone to sign the petition at changecheshire east.org. Over 1000 people already have, but more are still needed.
Best wishes
Geoff