Par for the Course

The South Wales Evening Post reports on the latest twist in the row over Garnant Golf Course. According to reports, the course cost £1 million to be build, has been losing money at the rate of £150,000 per year, and a company is now being given a £200,000 golden hello to take the course off the council's hands for the next 25 years, with the first 6 years being rent-free.

At a conservative estimate, the course has cost the council tax payer around £3 million to date.

When the deal was first announced a few weeks back, Cllr Clive Scourfield (Independent), executive member responsible for planning and regeneration, expressed himself "delighted" with it.

Now Labour leader and deputy leader of the council, Kevin Madge, has taken a swipe at Plaid Cymru councillor Marion Binney (note to Evening Post sub - that is her correct name) for criticising what he presumably regards as a good deal.

So whereas council tax payers may have been expecting a little humility from the ruling Independent/Labour top brass on the council, and possibly even an apology, we are instead treated to bluster and arrogance.

Madge goes on to give us all a warning that the council is not obliged to provide swimming pools or other leisure facilities, a hint presumably of more cuts, closures, price hikes and deals with private sector operators to come.

In fact the council has been doing its best to empty its leisure centres for a couple of years now, with a policy of aggressive price increases for users. The result has been that quite a few yoga, aerobics, pilates and other groups have been voting with their feet and moving to halls and other facilities which don't treat them like cash cows.

A woman running one popular group said that the council noticed how popular her class was and upped the fees twice within a short space of time, to the point where she was paying the maximum on the published scale of charges. Still the numbers kept growing, so the council then asked for a share of her takings on top of the hire fee. This class has now moved to a neighbouring authority.

A group of fathers running a football training club for children aged 7-10 found they were being asked to pay more than double their existing fee for a quiet evening slot. That evening slot is now free.

Quite how this fits in with the council's much-vaunted "Feeling Fine" policy on healthy living has not been explained. Care to comment, Cllr Madge?

Meanwhile the public has been left wondering how the council could afford to waste so much money on a golf course (in Cllr Madge's ward, incidentally) while it does not have any money for services on which people rely. As Mr Dunckley points out in his comment on the Post story, Kev and his Independent chums have now cut subsidies for bus travel from the Amanford area to Swansea hitting people on low incomes who rely on bus travel to get to work.

Presumably Cllr Madge would rather see them take up golf.