Spelthorne Conservatives have spent over £20m of reserves in only 10 years

Council admits to wasting your money

Over the last 10 years Conservative-controlled Spelthorne has spent more than £40m of "reserves". Most of this money came from the sale of Council houses in the 1990's. Since then the level of reserves has fallen rapidly, despite the sale of other assets during the period.

At the Budget 2011/12 meeting in February the Conservative Leader of the Council said that "A few years ago the Council were using more than £2million general reserves to support the revenue budget. We could not go on haemorrhaging reserves".

What he did not tell the Council is that Spelthorne has been using up its reserves for many years. This continued reliance on selling Spelthorne's assets to prop up the budget made the Council complacent. The Council delayed looking at its internal and external contract costs thereby wasting millions of taxpayers money.

Years of financial mismanagement leaves Spelthorne in danger of service cuts in the future.

Spelthorne Liberal Democrats have for years been telling the Conservatives that this was the case and now, too late, the Tories have realised the mistake that they have made.