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Is GBC Britain’s Most Wasteful Council? Asks National Paper
Published on: 29 Jul, 2025
Updated on: 30 Jul, 2025
By Martin Giles
The £1.6 million overspent on fire doors by Guildford Borough Council is on the agenda of tonight’s full council meeting (July 29).
See: Another Housing Revenue Account Overspend Revealed at GBC
The issue has reached the national news with The Daily Telegraph asking: “Is this Britain’s most wasteful council?”
And in a packed agenda the council has plenty of other subjects to discuss including:
- GBC’s Improvement Plan
- consultation on the possible creation of a town council for Guildford
- a proposal for a new parish council for Peaslake
- the new leisure operating contract covering Spectrum and the Lido
- land transaction relating to Weyside Urban Village and the relocation of the Sewage Treatment Works
- an update report on Weyside Urban Village and the associated financial mitigation strategy
- appointment of a representative to the Surrey Police & Crime Panel.
Members of the public can attend the meeting at 7pm this evening (July 29) at Millmead Council Offices or watch a webcast of the meeting live or recorded via: https://guildford.public-i.tv/core/portal/home.
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Responses to Is GBC Britain’s Most Wasteful Council? Asks National Paper
Leave a Comment Please see our comments policy. All comments are moderated and may take time to appear. Full names, or at least initial and surname, must be given.
I'm living well for nothing at all! (See: No Trifling Matter: Magpie Trapped in Godalming Sainsbury’s)
Next stop, Debt Chasm! (See: We Should All Be Outraged About the Failure to Deal with Legacy Debt)
Angela Richardson
July 29, 2025 at 2:35 pm
The Telegraph journalist in the comments section underneath wondered if a more appropriate headline was, “Is this Britain’s most shameless Council?”
Are the people of Guildford so well off that it shrugs this financial ineptitude off?
Are the Lib Dems hoping that a new Unitary Authority gives them a clean sheet next election when Guildford Borough Council ceases to exist?
Or do the Lib Dems hope that no one understands the minutiae of the Housing Revenue Account, let alone remember that the portfolio was held by the current Council Leader in 2022 when everything appears to have gone horribly wrong.
Has anyone asked the question about who is financially benefiting from these unaccounted for overspends?
Angela Richardson is the former Conservative MP for Guildford
Tony Harrison
July 29, 2025 at 6:18 pm
The Pop Up Village – twice, the ludicrous waste of money on the White Elephant Bridge [the new Walnut Bridge], the absolutely scandalous quality of empty commercial property GBC owns that the tax payer is forking out council tax on, the massive housing department financial mismanagement, to mention but a few examples.
If there is a worse council in the land, I’d really like to see it.
Wayne Smith
July 29, 2025 at 8:58 pm
I’ve written to the Dragon on several occasions in the past few years that there appeared to be a complete lack of policy and procedures within Guildford Borough Council and it seems that is still the case!
In the linked article Cllr McShane has the bare faced cheek to describe £1.6 million as a “slight overspend”. It’s reported that a further £1.6 million is required to complete the work.
Cllr Hunt describes it as a ‘learning experience’. If only! This council doesn’t learn.
Joint Chief Executive Pedro Wrobel says: “We are once again looking at our controls, not just in housing but across the piece, to make sure we have as firm a grip as possible on this.”
At the time Mr Wrobel took up his position, in an interview with The Dragon he said: “A number of issues across the organisation where the kind of controls and systems that I would expect to find aren’t quite where they ought to be.”
More than a year later and those controls are still lacking.
H Trevor Jones
July 30, 2025 at 10:29 am
I dislike this habit of criticising all people collectively in any political party. I know good people locally in each of the Lib Dems, Labour, Conservative, and Peace Parties, and can have a good constructive discussion with any of them.
Angela Richardson
July 30, 2025 at 7:55 pm
It’s nice to feel good about who we get on with but it doesn’t answer any questions or provide any solutions.
Angela Richardson is the former Conservative MP for Guildford.
David Roberts
July 30, 2025 at 11:32 am
I’d rather the money were spent on fire doors than on a council leader’s trip to Dongying, China, or a pop-up village, which were among the brainwaves of the Tory council pre-2019.
RWL Davies
July 31, 2025 at 5:01 pm
Ms. Richardson nails it unequivocally.
What comes next?
More of the same with cosmetic and presentational “adjustments”, totally untenable.