The York council will soon have spent its £28 million “Economic Investment Fund”.

In a final spending spree, before electors have a chance to give a verdict on the “spend, spend, spend” approach of the Labour Council, over £250,000 is to be spent this year on new projects.

One involves the investment of £175,000 in paving the entrance to Hungate/Peasholme Green.

The justification for the investment is that it will encourage more “return visitors to the area”.

While the Quilt Museum and Black Swan pub (both of which could suffer because of the Councils decision to close the Haymarket car park) may read this with interest, most commentators will think that the private sector should pay for any improvements to Hungate.

This is, after all, adjacent to the site which the Council sold off for a little over £2 million in the depth of the recession.

The prime City centre site – on which Hiscox hope to build offices – has now more than doubled in value.

The project will, however, have little impact on Hungate even after adding in Section S106 contributions which could increase the budget to circa £250,000.

Nearby £300,000 is being spent on paving a very small section of Fossgate, while the controversial resurfacing of Kings Square is costing taxpayers £500,000.

Most of the Council’s EIF budget comes from borrowing. It will add around £1.6 million a year to the debt charges that taxpayers will have to find.

Meanwhile sub-urban shopping and residential eras continue to suffer a decline in public service standards.

Perhaps the most telling comment on the Hungate scheme comes in the Council report itself.

It virtually admits that they have no idea whether the investment will bring any kind of return for the City.

“With respect to the Hungate public realm project, estimating the exact impact of investment in public realm can be difficult, but estimates provided in this report from respected authorities suggest that the impact provides value for money”.

Quite so!