Liberal Democrat Fury at Tory Flip Flop

8.33.30pm GMT Tue 19th Feb 2008

• COUNCIL Leader Serge Lourie has reacted angrily to the second Conservative "Flip Flop" in a week.

Not satisfied on going back on their proposal for an enabling development at Barn Elms to finance the proposed development of the sports fields, they have now come out against the Twickenham River Centre, which was selected as a result of the 2003 Twickenham Challenge, inaugurated by the former Tory administration. Speaking in York House, Twickenham, Serge Lourie said:

"After the 2006 election, we took over the Twickenham Challenge and heard proposals from three organisations. We selected the River Centre, as it was the only scheme making proper use of this important riverside site for river related activity. We made one change to the process in that we felt that none of the bidders would be able to fundraise the full cost of the project. We agreed that we would provide a shell so that the winning bidder would only have to raise money to fit out the building. Importantly, we continued with the Conservative idea that anything on the site should be funded by enabling development on the site as the council's resources are limited. We now have a scheme that meets our criteria in that it is self funding, has considerable open space, upgrades the embankment and the site, reprovides the playground (probably in a better location), provides a river centre and moves a lot of traffic and parking away from the riverside. Whilst the Council still has usable unallocated reserves of around £28 million, these are being invested in high priority local projects such as Teddington School, which is costing local tax payers around £8 million.

Given the pressures on the council, there is no possibility of our finding sufficient funds to invest in Twickenham Riverside without the use of money generated by the proposed enabling residential development. Cllr True is misleading the public into believing that there is a hidden pot of money that could be used to implement their ideas. The Conservatives have not costed their scheme but a preliminary estimate has been made of £3 million as the quality will have to be extremely high in this sensitive location. We already know that the cost of improving the embankment along to York House Gardens alone in the Council scheme will be £1 million"