A senior councillor has demanded answers over how £1.25 million of council taxpayers’ money has been spent on a collapsed environmental project.
Kirklees Council had planned a major scheme which included a fish farm to produce caviar.
There were also plans for a ‘floating’ cafe, lake and workshops in rail coaches at the Able2 project on land near the Pondersosa Rare Breeds Farm, off Smithies Lane in Heckmondwike.
But tomorrow (Tues) Kirklees Cabinet will have to decided whether to scale it back.
And Clr Martyn Bolt, who was Cabinet member at the time the project was backed, said Kirklees should explain what has happened to the money.
He said: “At best, we’ve got a hole in the ground to show for the last few years, at worst we’ve had the muck of a former landfill site moved around.”
Clr Bolt, a Mirfield Conservative, said: “I think it is a lamentable failure of the project’s business management by the administration at Kirklees.
“It was years ahead of itself, it was to be a multi-functional space for growing food, offering people work experience opportunities, getting breakfast clubs running, which is something the Huddersfield Town Foundation is doing now, having bike maintenance projects, which is what Streetbikes are doing now.
“It was a place to really give people a sense of worth and job opportunities.
“It was fully costed but what’s happened since I left Cabinet? It seems very little yet we’ve had money ploughed into this which I think has been soaked up in a puddle and staff costs and not much else.”
Clr Bolt says serious answers are needed and has repeatedly asked for them.
He said: “This is now about public finances, where has the money identified for this gone?”
The Able2 project was based on an idea already operating in Wakefield.
The lake has been created and there are fish in it, but the Environment Agency – which gave £50,000 to build the lake – say further work is needed to create a habitat for the fish to breed.
The Dewsbury and District Junior Angling Club is interested in maintaining the lake as a recreational facility and Kirklees is proposing to spend £50,000 to make that happen.
A council spokesman said: “The council’s Cabinet at a meeting in October 2009 allocated funding of £1.25m to the scheme and this has been used to reclaim a long derelict site compromising of former railway sidings/embankments and a landfill site to establish a lake and associated eco-drainage system.
“It did not prove possible to produce a viable business model for commercial fish farming on the site as originally envisaged.
“During the construction phase the works together with various research and prototype activities took place, including the creation of a replica rail coach to reflect the historic railway connections.
“These activities created a number of job, training and apprentice opportunities for local disadvantaged young people many of whom have since gone on to find alternative employment.
“In the light of the current funding challenges facing the council the proposal is to use the lake as a recreational angling facility for young people from North Kirklees with the lake and the surrounding area also providing a beneficial community ‘haven’ adjacent to the Spen Valley Greenway.
“The intention is that subject to Cabinet approval works to make the lake accessible to the angling organisation including the installation of the replica rail coach on site will be completed during summer 2015.”
