Carlisle Labour Party

Last rites for Renaissance as Labour pledges to pick up pieces

		By Carlisle Labour Party in General Published: Wednesday, 03 March 10 - 09:58 AM (GMT) Last Updated: Monday, 08 March 10 - 07:20 AM (GMT)

Michael Boaden has today seized on comments made by Council Leader Mike Mitchelson at a Council meeting last night as ‘a massive climbdown on Carlisle Renaissance.’  

Michael Boaden said today

‘The Council leader indicated that Carlisle Renaissance will be taken back in house.  
Along with colleagues I have been calling for this action to be taken for months if not years now, and whilst I am glad that the Council leadership seems to be finally listening to us, the people of Carlisle have a right to some answers.  

This sorry and shameful mess has wasted millions of pounds of public money, added not one jot to Carlisle’s prospects for economic development and in the case of such follies as the City of Culture bid opened the City to ridicule.  

That is an appalling legacy for this failed project and it is the Leader of the Council and his Tory colleagues who are responsible.

They have ignored calls from the people of the City to focus on a set of priorities based not on grandiose thinking but dealing with real problems and issues. 

They have failed to recognise that the whole project needed to be placed under proper democratic control and not be dominated by those who prefer secret meetings and no accountability.  And now those of us who truly have the interests of the City and its long term future at heart have to pick up the pieces.’