Contempt & lack of support for Mexborough, the 5th largest town in SouthYorkshire by Doncaster Council reaches new level!
On Thursday, Cllr Gibbons received an email from Doncaster Council advising that the town will be awarded just £500 for community events….which equates to less than 3p per #Mexborough resident!
The email states ‘we would like to extend the previous arrangement for the 2019/20 financial year’. Thing is, Mex Cllrs had to fight to get DMBC to even give us £500 last year as initially a ‘nil’ events budget had been set!
Furthermore, we had to fight again to get additional monies in lieu of the Christmas Tree costs fom DMBC which was £1,200 (which the MECi team utilised on provision of the Santa’s Grotto plus other festive entertainment). We also managed to secure DMBC covering the costs of the live reindeers in town which was a huge attraction for local families.
This year…..Cllr Gibbons was informed verbally that the £500 is to cover everything….ALL EVENTS COSTS for 2019/2020 financial year. Unbelievable!
Now let’s compare to the public monies DMBC choose to spend on Doncaster town centre events –
1) Tour de Yorkshire – £75,000 was spent last year on the Stage 1 finish. This year we expect that figure to be even more as Doncaster is hosting a Stage Start.
2) Christmas Lights installation and hire – £42, 593 excluding VAT…. therefore over £50,000 (£24,997 hire & £17,596 installation)!
3) the above figure does not include the cost of the huge fireworks display which we are currently awaiting the costs for….but we reckon a good £25,000!!
4) Delicious Doncaster Food Festival – last year a budget of £50,000 was agreed! The last figure we received via the CEO was a £47,000 spend and income generated of around £19,000. So that is a £28,000 hit in the council coffers with a ‘Return on Investment (ROA)’ of, we are informed, several hundred thousand pounds incrementally spend in shops, restaurants etc in Doncaster town centre and increased footfall into the town. Sounds great… but how about applying those principles in Mexborough..the next largest town in the Doncaster borough and 5th largest in South Yorkshire??! We understand a similar budget of £50,000 has been agreed for this year’s DDFF!
We could go on and on! As you can see, that’s around £200,000 of tax payer’s monies spent on just the above events in Doncaster…and Mexborough is given £500!
Mex Cllrs are not happy and will be raising our concerns with the Mayor Ros Jones and MP Ed Miliband
We would also encourage all residents and local businesses to raise your concerns by emailing – themayor@doncaster.gov.uk
