Jump to content

Gravy Train Gets New Engine?


Albert Tatlock

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 1.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

If you look at page 20 of the pink book you can see the DCCL Income and Expenditure forecast for 2012/13. They estimate income to be £4.8m and expenses to be £13.7m. These are just the revenue numbers by the way. It includes "engineering" of £3.2m.

 

On page 25 the capital expenses are listed and amount to an estimated £6.19m on top of the £13.7m listed as revenue expenses!!

 

I'm normally a "bigger picture" sort of person, but I'm really struggling with this one. On the face of it I understand the changes to pre-school - but doing that when we're pumping in millions to a transport network is a bit much even for me. Tim Crookall must have a brass neck if he really thinks asking for this money is a good idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe he went to holiday to Turkey and thought to barter "I need £50million for trains and lego", "I'll give you 25p", "What 25p? that is ridiculous, I said I needed £50million, ok, I'll settle for £5million but you're not getting a turn of my lego engine"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why don't we shut down the trains for a couple of years? There would be minimal wages, running costs, maintenance etc and as the income clearly doesn't cover the cost of running it, we'd be no worse off. Once we have a bit more money, we can restart luxuries like an antiquated railway aimed at tourists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you look at page 20 of the pink book you can see the DCCL Income and Expenditure forecast for 2012/13. They estimate income to be £4.8m and expenses to be £13.7m. These are just the revenue numbers by the way. It includes "engineering" of £3.2m. On page 25 the capital expenses are listed and amount to an estimated £6.19m on top of the £13.7m listed as revenue expenses!! I'm normally a "bigger picture" sort of person, but I'm really struggling with this one. On the face of it I understand the changes to pre-school - but doing that when we're pumping in millions to a transport network is a bit much even for me. Tim Crookall must have a brass neck if he really thinks asking for this money is a good idea.
On P36 of the Pink Book, they are also showing that the income from Public Transport Fares is budgeted to grow from £3.5m to £4.5m. That is growth of 29%, which is not going to come from attracting more customers or by putting fares up for the few people who actually have to pay.............. Could it be, that free travel for pensioners and school children is in Mr Crookall's cross hairs...........
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could it be, that free travel for pensioners and school children is in Mr Crookall's cross hairs...........

Well why not? We're closing homes for the elderly, charging for a previously free nursery service, cutting child benefit without reference to a family's income, refusing to extend breast cancer screening for older women, closing libraries, closing police stations, shafting anyone with a mortgage and fixed income, and on and on and on, so why not force kids and OAPs to pay for the bus - anything which stops the HNWI, rich businesses and, of course, members of Tynwald having to share ANY of the burden.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh and £3.2 million on a baggage handling system at the airport, but only £1million for Douglas promenade revamp? Tits.

 

Ahh yes but you fail to understand the baggage facility cum departure lounge thingy is to cater for the invisible passengers and their make believe luggage. On a serious note I expect that the old "well the current system may break down it is old !" seems to me some maintenance would be a damn site cheaper what don't these halfwits understand about the changed reality in which we find ourselves, personally as we are paying baggage handlers 1.3million per year I expect my case to be hand delivered in any case (figure courtesy of Cregeen)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is plenty of stuff in the capital budget which could have been altered, delayed for a couple of years, or outright cancelled. I suspect a lot of the most frivolous stuff is hidden in the 'minor capital works' section, but a brief glance of the named projects:

 

Department of Culture, Community and Leisure:

 

Public transport vehicle replacement programme: £1.8 million

Diesel Locomotive: £0.75 million

Minor capital works: £1.4 million

 

Department of Education and Children

 

Westmoreland Road Primary School, design fees (pre-contract) £0.22: million

Minor capital works: £2 million

Victoria Road School Extension (in addition to the replacement classrooms, there's stuff like a kitchen and sports hall on there) £2.17 million

QEII Kitchen/Tennis Courts (!) Scheme, design fees (pre-contract): £78 thousand

Ballakermeen post 16 + dining extension, design fees (pre-contract): £0.2 million

 

Environment, Food, and Agrigulture

 

Laxey Pavillion and Silverdale complex refurbishment: £27 thousand

Bradda refurbishment scheme: £0.11 million

 

Infrastructure

 

Airport, Baggage handling and departure lounge construction: £3.2 million

Highway strategic maintenance footpath reconstruction: £0.5 million

Highway strategic reconstruction unclassified roads reconstruction: £0.5 million

Office site feasibility study: £50 thousand

DOI Snow Plan - Southern salt barn: £0.86 million

 

Social care

 

Bowling Green site demoliton + design fees: £0.18 million

House purchase assistance scheme: £2.4 million

 

I'm not arguing that all of these should be cut, but from the roughly 16 million pounds worth of schemes listed above, surely more savings could have been made in this budget than is the case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, quite a few of them were agreed upon as part of the budget.

 

In fact, a very large amount were approved prior to the budget, leaving relatively little scope for subsequent cuts to capital expenditure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why don't we shut down the trains for a couple of years? There would be minimal wages, running costs, maintenance etc and as the income clearly doesn't cover the cost of running it, we'd be no worse off. Once we have a bit more money, we can restart luxuries like an antiquated railway aimed at tourists.

 

Or mabye we could get some of the Finance Sector companies to subsidise the Trains,[ which incidently have been here for about 130 years now] thereby putting something back into the economy they are living off, and no, we don't have any tourists now. Not since we put all our eggs in the giant basket of greed that is the Finance Sector. Don't tell me i am better of now, you don't know how well of I used to feel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Or mabye we could get some of the Finance Sector companies to subsidise the Trains,[ which incidently have been here for about 130 years now] thereby putting something back into the economy they are living off, and no, we don't have any tourists now. Not since we put all our eggs in the giant basket of greed that is the Finance Sector. Don't tell me i am better of now, you don't know how well of I used to feel.

 

News flash: IOM Tourism disappeared because of the finance industry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...