Readers might need some light relief from the will it/ wont it Euroferries Bonanza Express story, although that said the 'Schmidt Machine' seems to have cost the tax-payer a considerable amount of money. That said, what has the Euroferries business cost us so far?.
My picture shows a 'Schmidt City Jet 6000', one of which, I have been informed by a TDC employee, was purchased in 2003. If you have been fortunate enough to see it operating in Thanet, you will have been looking at £94,000 or so of kit. However, rumour has it that this bit of kit doesn't do a good job; it polishes stuck gum on the pavement rather than removing it and if you are silly enough to stand to its rear you are likely to be sprayed with regurgitated dirty effluent.
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I am interested in this tale because it appears to be yet another example of utter waste of tax-payers' money by TDC. This machine has cost us £15,000 per year so far to operate. It would appear to have been a dubious spending of Regeneration Budget money authorised by the then Cllr Ingrid Spencer( now 'Our Leader's choice in Dane Valley as a candidate), without reference to any Committtee; without following Contract Procedure Rules and without really grasping that staff needed training to operate it.
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Sources tell me it has spent more time in the depot gathering dust than keeping our streets clean, mainly due to lack of trained staff to operate it. If it had been doing its stuff for 30hrs per week for 50 weeks of the year for 6 years, the capital cost would be down to just over £10 per hour now. The real question is, how many hours has it done? This Schmidt machine is more likely to have cost us over £100 per hour for each hour it has actually been operated!
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Is that really a good use of regeneration money?
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3 comments:
I didn't realise regeneration money could be used for buying useless equipment and in any case, doesn't/didn't TDC have a smaller bit of kit for getting rid of chewing gum?
Ingrid Spencer was a Cabinet member until the election of 2007 when she got unseated by Tom King over in Westgate. I do hope 'Our Leader' doesn't have plans to pop her back in the cabinet. Aren't there enough 'yesmen/women' there already?
Come on, Dane Valley voters, make sure you stop this happening by voting for another candidate.
We followed it up to the tip this am - (TDC's depot is next door!) and it was spewing out water all over the place at the rear - onto my clean car and my kids said "Whats that mum?" i said "its the leaf sweeper" my daughter then said "does it always spew out dirty water?" i said innocently "yes the leaves get swept up into it waterlogged!" Little did we know that we were following " Ingrid,the white elephant!"
Director of Finance and Corporate Services, Sue McGonigal, said: “The financial future in local government is looking bleak at the moment. There’s no getting away from that fact, which is why I normally stay I mean work from home . It was also a good reason to Job slot the HR manager into a new post on the same salary as 70% of the work was the same and then make a new HR manager, I have got this wasting money to a fine art. 2 people doing 35%of the work each for twice as much, I am sure 2 beans +2 beans make 5, that’s why I am the chief bean counter, it was a really shock to find out that when I was home those rotters in Margate spent an extra £1.8 million.
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