Financing plan is dangerous (From Thurrock Gazette)
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Financing plan is dangerous
12:21pm Wednesday 4th July 2012 in Letters to the Editor
WITH reference to the ongoing saga regarding the Woodside college campus, all through the debate that has surrounded this issue, very little emphasis has been put on the make-up of the loan towards the building of the new college in New Road.
In a previous letter to the Gazette, I pointed out that any councils who took the road of Private Funded Investments (PFI) have only benefited the investors to the detriment of the local tax payer. The trust that took over Woodside has only done so to sell the land for profit (but the contaminated part of the land the developer is not interested in, so it has not been sold).
A percentage of this money goes towards the trust, and some towards the building of the new college – the difference is made up by PFI.
Liverpool, Birmingham, Portsmouth and now more NHS hospitals are in trouble, as well as various universities, where they have had repairs and extensions paid for by PFI.
The previous Government, and this present one, by not helping hospitals and schools with money from the Treasury, are forcing them to go the PFI route, to maintain the quality they demand.
When is someone going to wake up and see that the whole debacle is tantamount to a headlong dive over a cliff at the ratepayers’ expense. Need I say more? – A KNIGHT, Princess Margaret Road, East Tilbury.
