October 25, 2022 5.05 pm This story is over 27 months old

Councillor questions trust in officers after car park data inaccuracies

Former eagle-eyed councillor spotted the error

A councillor questioned how council officers’ figures can be trusted after a resident’s Freedom of Information request picked up inaccuracies around plans for a £500k rebuild of a Sutton on Sea car park.

A decision on the Broadway Car Park was withdrawn from East Lindsey District Council’s Full Council on October 12 after a Standing Reference Group, which meets behind closed doors, reported discrepancies over car park income quotes.

At a meeting of the authority’s Overview Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, Councillor Jill Makinson-Sanders confirmed that the discrepancies were picked up by former Councillor Stephen Palmer, who has criticised the scheme and questioned its validity.

East Lindsey officers said the five year turnover figures were around £70,000 – however, an FOI by wife Pauline revealed the highest earning year in the past five to actually be closer to £40,277.14 – a near £30,000 difference.

Officers have previously said that 30 extra spaces created by the rebuild would help bring in a further £60,000 a year extra revenue – particularly once the £6.2million Sutton on Sea Colonnade rebuild is completed with the hope it will attract 75,000 more tourists.

However, Mr Palmer has also questioned that figure following his FOI and has regularly posted updates on the low number of cars using the facilities onto his Facebook page.

He said the work will “destroying a much-loved grass amenity and unique attraction to the village”.

At the meeting on Tuesday, Councillor Makinson-Sanders said: “We always take our figures on trust and had Mr Palmer not done his homework we would have accepted [the original figure] and we would have broken local government rules.

“You begin to question, if a member of the public can pick up that somebody’s got it wrong… I just wonder how we can trust figures in future. There’s a big issue on this and we can’t sweep it under the carpet, it’s important.

“If a member of the public can […] show that the council with all the employees we’ve got can’t get it right […] it doesn’t reflect well on this council and that really worries me.”.

Chairman Councillor Edward Mossop moved to reassure that the council “can be accurate with figures”.

“How we challenge that is through these [scrutiny] processes. It was a stroke of luck that it was spotted by a member of the public and yeah it makes it very difficult, makes you a little more cynical.

However, he added: “The officer was extremely apologetic… he attended that meeting very shamefaced about it and he accepted what was said there. It was right that it was pulled at full council.”

Councillor Dr David Mangion added: “It seems as though this was a one-off mistake, human error, I don’t think there’s any reason to actually erase the officers or the process.”


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