IT looks increasingly likely that Kirklees taxpayers’ money will be lost in the Icelandic bank crash.
The council had invested £1m with Landsbanki and now Kirklees Council’s deputy leader, Kath Pinnock, has admitted that they may not get it all back.
Time will tell exactly how much we have lost – and it could be quite some time as these things can take years to sort out.
It’s easy to criticise bad investments in hindsight – some councils have invested far more in Iceland and may well have lost many millions, leaving huge holes in their budgets.
It was a fixed-term, one-year investment which suggests it seemed a safe bet at the time.
More interestingly, it is less than 1% of the £102m Kirklees Council has invested in banks and building societies.
That figure alone will no doubt have raised a few eyebrows – a massive sum of money stashed away with the Council Tax rise implemented this month and several services facing cuts or tough funding targets.
Of course this money will be reaping interest for the council coffers and we need a contingency fund for the hard times – but surely these are hard times.
It also makes you wonder where the rest of the money is invested and how safe it is now.
We used to say safe as houses – but not any more.
