Investigations by Bury’s Liberal Democrat councillors has revealed that Labour and Conservative councillors have not allocated around half of the money allocated to them for their local communities.
Only two areas – the Liberal Democrat councillors in Holyrood Ward and also the councillors in Tottington – have allocated the total of £4,500 allocated under the Elected Member Discretionary Budgets during that period.
The scheme was set up in December 2017 for councillors to support local projects and initiatives within their ward and wider township at their discretion.
More information was provided in an investigation by the Bury Times, reveal that only £41,801.96 was spent by councillors in their communities out of a possible £76,500.
Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Tim Pickstone said: “We welcomed the decision to provide councillors with small delegated budgets to spend on priorities in their own wards. Liberal Democrat councillors in Holyrood ward have had no difficulty making sure all of that money has gone to the right place supporting a whole variety of community groups and initiatives.”
“There are so many good causes that need our support so I am amazed that only two of the 17 wards in Bury have spent the money that has been allocated to them.”
Councillors in Radcliffe West spent the least money at £312 out of a possible £4,5000 while Besses and St Mary’s wards spent around £700 each.
Here is how Liberal Democrat Councillors spent the budget in Holyrood Ward.
Here is the full spend / underspend for each ward:
| Bury East | Available | Spend | EMDB allocated per ward | |
| Moorside | 2105.00 | 2395.00 | 4500 | |
| Redvales Ward | 1300.00 | 3200.00 | 4500 | |
| East Ward | 2966.76 | 1533.24 | 4500 | |
| 6371.76 | 7128.24 | |||
| Bury West | Available | Spend | EMDB allocated per ward | |
| Elton Ward | 871.70 | 3628.30 | 4500 | |
| Church Ward | 2349 | 2151 | 4500 | |
| 3220.70 | 5779.30 | |||
| RTNM | available | Spend | EMDB allocated per ward | |
| Ramsbottom | 2672 | 1828 | 4500 | |
| North Manor | 291.20 | 4208.80 | 4500 | |
| Tottington | 0 | 4500 | 4500 | |
| 2963.20 | 6036.80 | |||
| Radcliffe | available | spend | EMDB allocated per ward | |
| North | 1719.48 | 2780.52 | 4500 | |
| West | 4188 | 312 | 4500 | |
| East | 1226.53 | 3273.47 | 4500 | |
| 7134 | 6365.99 | |||
| Whitefield & Unsworth | available | spend | EMDB allocated per ward | |
| Pilkington Park | 2870 | 1630 | 4500 | |
| Besses | 3772.19 | 727.81 | 4500 | |
| Unsworth | 3100 | 1400 | 4500 | |
| 9742.19 | 3757.81 | |||
| Prestwich | available | spend | EMDB allocated per ward | |
| St Marys | 3811 | 689 | 4500 | |
| Sedgley | 1454.80 | 3045.20 | 4500 | |
| Holyrood | 0.38 | 4499.62 | 4500 | |
| 5266.18 | 8233.82 |
Thank you for your import work in alerting residents to this spending shortfall. Very concerning.
Regards
RW
Queston to be asked, why did conservative councillors in Tottington and Lib Dem’s in Holyrood manage to spend their money. I know that in Tottington many more groups could have benefited if more money had been available.
Was the fact that Voluntary groups could apply not published/advertised in the other area or were applications turned down.
I cannot imagine that there are not more groups in other areas that would benefit from a cash imput but maybe they do not want to go through the Pitch process ?
For the information to be meaningful it needs to have how many groups applied & for how much and whether they were successful or not.
We also need to knowi is money retained by individual areas or added to total for following year to divide between all areas or perhaps swallowed up by general council fund.
As treasurer of a registered charity and several voluntary
I groups I am personally not happy with the Pitch idea in that it depends how many supporters have a Saturday afternoon to spend listening to pitches to be able to vote for their own voluntary group,
I would be interested to know the answers and perhaps could be published in Bury Times and discussed by the Council.
So what has happened to all the money that they didn’t spend?
We think (hope) that it is all carried over to the following year.