Labour Councillors continued to obstruct attempts to get at the truth behind the Lowfields Care village fiasco when the Council held a review meeting last night.

Despite revelations yesterday that senior Councillors have known for at least a year that the planned scheme was “unaffordable”, the Labour Council leadership continues to be in a  state of denial.

Meeting minutes revealed that official had blamed “gold plated” building standards for the failure of the project. They had been reluctant to admit the failures because it “could have affected the credibility of the Councils flagship rewiring project”.

The plan had been to keep the mistakes under wraps until after the Council election in May.  But sustained questioning by Opposition Councillors, coupled with the need to respond to Freedom of Information requests, finally forced the public admission last month.

They now hope to sell the site (a valuation of £2 million has been put on it) but appear to have already decided that 100 homes will be built there.

Other than the normal planning application consultation, residents will have no opportunity to influence this decision.

The present Council now only has about 6 weeks to run. Hopefully a more enlightened regime will take over after May 7th.

Only then is the real truth about the fiasco – which is set to cost taxpayers around £1 million – likely to emerge.

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£1 million wasted on aborted project?

Labour have today admitted that they have failed to deliver a new modern facility – aimed at older people – on the site of the former Lowfields school.

Talks with potential contractors have been abandoned and the future of the site has been thrown into the air again.

The site had been “marketed” jointly with the Burnholme school site on the other side of the City (which may still go ahead)

Residents in the west of the City were hoping to see the equivalent of the Hartrigg Oaks facility, which Rowntree Housing manage on the other side to the City, built in Acomb. The Lowfields site was considered to be ideal because it is within walking distance of all major services and facilities. It is close to a frequent buss service.

Although the retirement village was agreed in 2010 by the last LibDem administration, the project was derailed when Labour took office in 2011. They tried unsuccessfully to develop the scheme as a Council run home…. believed to be a condition which a local government union imposed when funding Labours last election campaign.

“In house” provision proved to be unaffordable with build figures of over £20 million leaked to the media in 2012.

The project then went the same way as the Community Stadium plan, with additional requirements being heaped onto potential developers making the whole scheme unviable.

Instead of admitting failure 2 years ago, Labour continued with a doomed “procurement process” until today’s’ announcement brought the sorry saga to an end

The project was 5 years behind schedule and is probably a bigger example of mismanagement than even the Lendal Bridge fiasco.

 Clearly one big question is how much has been spent (staff time, “soft marketing”, plans, procurement etc.) so far on the Lowfields project?

Some sources put the figure at over £1 million.

The U turn will cause consternation in elderly care facilities across the City. Some were destined to close when occupiers moved to the brand new state of the art village.

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