WINTER WARMER

Doncaster's Labour Leader and anointed mayoral candidate Martin Winter is not a happy chappie. He has taken legal advice over a "smear campaign" against his march on the mayoralty. The mud-slinging concerns the Glass Park (Eye 1049 "winter wonderland"), a multi-million pound "community" project that is dear to his heart, if no one else's.

Friends of Cllr. Winter are worried the stress of high office is having an effect on his memory. In correspondence in November last year the Eye asked him if he had acted as a paid consultant on various schemes, including the Glass Park, and he replied: "I am saying this is certainly not the case." funny then, that accounts presented to the charity commission show that in 1999-2000, Cllr. Winter was paid £10,000 by the Glass Park's trustees for work on the project.

He declares: "I have nothing to hide with this project." We shall have to take his word for it, because since Eye 1049 appeared all Internet sites carrying information about the various Glass Park subsidiaries have mysteriously closed and the trust's agm, originally scheduled for 14th March, has been postponed until after the mayoral election.

Private Eye No.1051 18th April 2002

MARTY PANTS

Marty Winter, bumptious mayor of Donnygate, smirks triumphantly at voters from a recent edition of the Doncaster news. He uses the free sheet to boast of his ‘ambitious’, ‘busy’ and ‘challenging’ agenda which features all the usual suspects of education, crime reduction, social care and economical development.

Sadly for the poor folk of the borough, by the time the paper hit the streets, home secretary David Blunkett had nicked 30 South Yorkshire coppers from their Donny beat to boost crime prevention initiatives in Sheffield. Winter said nothing.

Then a care crisis provoked by the council’s parsimony reduced provision for the elderly, who went on to see their meals on wheels service being withdrawn.

Winter’s concern for education was put into perspective when it was revealed that he had paid a mere £90,000 for consultants to come up with an ‘educashun master plan’, measured against the £857,000 he and his cronies coughed up for the race course consultants.

Winter has managed to deliver in one area under his jurisdiction. Page 3 of the propaganda sheet lavishes praise on ‘Doncaster’s Green Revolution’, a recycling scheme called Kerbside Collections and funded by the council to the tune of £679,000.

Despite all this cash, there was a crisis a couple of months into the scheme which required a further £70,000 emergency funding. Hidden away in accounts is a payment of £149,000 for ‘Raising Awareness’ made out to the Glass Park Company (prop: Martin Winter, see Eyes Passim). On the books as project coordinator is Caroline Hunter (aka Mrs Martin Winter). And on Page 5 is a piece about crowds flocking to a ‘Farmers’ Market’, a scheme also lavishly supported by the council, run by a company called DoLFN, which is yet another satellite of the Glass Park, again run by Winter. This Farmers’ market undermines the existing market, which is one of Donny’s economic jewels - but who cares? Mart’s doing very nicely, it seems.