AIDAN ABETTING

Doncaster's deputy mayor Aidan Rave has announced an amnesty on bad debts.

Independent councillor Margaret Pinkney objected to this, arguing that councillors and officers who owed the borough money after the Donnygate scandal should be "named and shamed". Rave retorted: "We are trying to move forward in this town. I can't believe that you do not listen councillor!"

Fact: although a number of councillors were convicted on sample charges of thieving, they and others - including still-serving members - were discovered by police to have over claimed expenses to the tune of many thousands of pounds.  They now appear to have got away with it, in the name of "forward movement".

Meanwhile Cllr. Rave last week announced a council tax rise of 15 percent. It should at least help meet the cost of the council's generosity to the crooks who still sit in its chamber.

Private Eye No. 1073 7th February 2003

WINTER WONDERLAND 2

Old habits die hard in Doncaster. On the eve of the announcement of a council tax rise of 13.5%, five points higher than most of its neighbours, the town’s elected mayor Martin Winter, his wife and three council officers were away on a chauffeur-driven junket to Donny’s German twin town, Hetten.

Doncaster’s days of fiddling and freeloading are supposedly all in the past, but tripping has gone on unabated since the district auditor fulminated – impotently, as it turns out – against the £400,000 wasted on jollies in the 1990’s. Recent “fact-finding” excursions have included former leader Colin Wedd’s visit to Pisa and Kyoto and Councillor Maureen Edgar’s trip last year with husband to the amusingly-named Swedish town of Nacka (At least it made a change from Donny councillors being visited by Knacker.)

Meanwhile various grandiose schemes are floated, all of which seen to require the services of expensive consultants. The excruciatingly trendy Leeds “communications experts” Brahm, for instance, trousered £975,000 for their thoughts on what to do with Doncaster racecourse.

Winter’s weekend break in Herten included a visit to watch a Bundesliga football match, and took in a number of tours focusing on recycling initiatives – a particular interest of the mayor’s. he has been an enthusiast for a recycling scheme run by Doncaster Community Recycling Partnership (DCRP) in which 11.000 homes received a green box to store glass, paper, cans and old clothes for kerbside collection. It began with projected costs of £649,072.40 – against earned income of just £26,000 – but costs spiralled out of control, passing £1m inside the first year, and DCRP had to be bailed out by the council. Now a second emergency request for funds is pending. So Mayor Winter will no doubt have had much to learn from the Germans, as will DCRP’s own paid “consultant” Caroline Hunter…. a.k.a. Mrs Martin Winter.

Private Eye No.1077 4th April 2003