Earlier today, Woking Borough Council officially announced that it had purchased Wolsey Place Shopping Centre following a decision on February 2 to become sole owners. The cost is £68million, which has been financed by the Public Works Loan Board.

The aim of the purchase is twofold – to invest in an asset that will both appreciate in time and generate a healthy £1.5m every year for the council and to play a pro-active role in encouraging economic growth in the town - in this case by securing the future of a major retail space. There are, it must be stressed, no plans for the council to run the centre, this will remain with existing staff.

There will no doubt be those that criticise the council for taking on more borrowing. They will stand on the fact that Woking has borrowed more than almost any other district council and that this somehow indicates financial imcompetence. Not so. The act of investing in tangible assets on a long-term basis and generating net profits from those investments is using borrowing as a force for good. I won’t defend all of the projects WBC has invested – and I favour a debt-free position – but in this case, one has to consider the broader interests of Woking in the future.

The nature of local government finances has changed. No longer are councils about revenue income, support grants, non-domestic rates and council tax versus costs – they have a wider, enabling role to play through investment in communities. We aren’t the only council looking to be more pro-active economically. Surrey Heath has got pro-active with The Atrium development and there are other options for the future. Runnymede redeveloped its Civic Centre and Guildford has worked to improve its Civic Hall and Friary Centre infrastructure for years.

The difference is that we have already gone into the market while the money is cheap and we are ahead of the curve – as suggested by the fact that the Liberal Democrats also backed the purchase of the centre. I’m pleased we’ve got a consensus on this and hope it survives the election intact.

Traditional local government finance will fade out as more and more cuts have to be made and councils look to other means of raising revenue. Outsourcing only gets you so far and is politically challenging – far better to invest cheaply in strategic assets that will generate multiple benefits for both residents and the council.

I’m beginning to understand how annoying I must have been as a journalist. I often used phrases that were technically true but stretched the lexicographical boundaries of semantics and the great English language. They nearly always made for better headlines and more irrate PRs.

This week, the News and Mail have carried on the noble traidtion with Woking taxpayers fund energy for Milton Keynes. Let’s start with the first par:

“Woking taxpayers have invested more than £44m in a company that provides
energy to Milton Keynes.”

No, they haven’t. Money for Thameswey has largely come from borrowing and money for the subsidaries has entirely been taken from the money markets. Nothing has come from the council taxpayer ie through council tax to fund Thameswey operations.

The paragraph implies that the company only supplies energy to Milton Keynes – it doesn’t. Most of its activities are Woking-based, including subsidising cavity insulation for residents and providing information on energy efficiency. Furthermore, Cllr John Kingsbury and the Conservative executive have pledged to conclude operations in MK early at the end of Phase I and that no new borrowing be approved for further project. There has been no such pledge from the Liberal Democrats.

Bob Shatwell, always good for a quote, thinks the whole thing is “scandalous”, which is about as good as it gets from him. Chris Bore makes a much more valid point – that the lack of transparency about Thameswey – which Ray Morgan insists is just because he’s never gotten around to it – is it’s own worst enemy.

In good times, the company has failed to get across the message of its success. In bad times, the level of resentment is that much higher because people don’t understand what the big secret is and assume the worst.

When I was at the News and Mail, I tried to run a series of articles on Thameswey to explain its role to readers and spent several hours with Ray Morgan getting into the financial nitty-gritty. It was about as enthusiastically received as mouldy bread by editorial staff and stonewalled on the grounds that people weren’t interested. They can’t have it both ways!