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THE FURNITURE PROJECT
So, the Luddites who run Derby City Council have
once more excelled themselves. Intent on carrying
out the systematic destruction of the heritage of
the people of Derby, they are now about to sell
off at least some of the best of the furniture
from St Helen’s House. It is about time
that we parted with the oligarchy that comprises
the City Council. These people are nothing more
than charlatans and opportunists who never miss
an opportunity to stick their grubby fingers in
the till whenever it suits them to do so.
Incapable, even of the most basic foresight, they
continue to pander to the large asset-stripping
developers to whom they and their ilk are such
easy prey and from whom they seek the safety of
having their corporate decisions made for them.
The problem with this is that they are supposed
to be representing the electorate of the city,
not themselves. Their own agenda seems to be such
an amateur affair that, elsewhere, in any other
context, it could be mistaken for the plot of a
Christmas pantomime. Make no mistake, we are not
talking about a few surplus items of office
furniture here. We are talking about four superb
examples of mahogany Georgian furniture, a
serving table, a console table, a wine cooler and
a bookcase, with a potential value of over
£20,000.
The decision to sell this treasure was taken by
the former Labour cabinet, in private
and without any consultation with the people of
Derby, to whom this furniture belongs. Chris
Williamson, who was council leader when the
decision to sell was made is quoted as saying
“There was nothing secret about the
decision. We wanted the best value for
taxpayer’s money. We were concerned that the
items would be damaged if they remained at St
Helen’s House.” Considering that the
City Council is directly responsible for the
present parlous state of the building, this is
one of the most galling aspects of the whole
situation and another glaring example, not only
of the double standards, ineptitude and downright
dishonesty involved, but also of the cover-ups
and closing of rank when anything as
controversial as this occurs.
Many of us have unfortunately become wearily
resigned to having to get used to such verbal
diarrhoea from councillors in this city.
Meanwhile Maurice Burgess, the present council
leader, who will (hopefully) be short lived in
the office he fell into by an electoral mishap,
does his unusually finely honed act of
fence-hopping and balancing which ought to render
him a better candidate for Billy Smart’s
circus than the leadership of Derby City Council.
With typical righteous indignation he states that
he didn’t understand why the decision was
not publicised, but added that, although the sale
will go ahead, “we will hold a public
meeting on December 16th to decide how we’ll
put the money back into Derby Heritage.”
This is nothing short of the crass stupidity of
which we are all becoming used to as daily fare.
There doesn’t seem to be an analogy suitable
in this case. Horses and stable doors aside, lets
look at this again: Derby City Council holds a
secret meeting at which it is decided to sell the
furniture from St Helen’s House. The same
council then suggests that this is to protect
this furniture from becoming damaged by the
perilous state of a building that they are
responsible for, because it is in danger from
either falling down, or becoming vandalised, or
both. They don’t inform the people of Derby,
to whom these items belong, until the news leaks
out a week before the sale. Then they have the
brass-neck, through the present leader, to
announce a consultation process about what to do
with the money raised!
The people of Derby must stand up to these craven
and heartless acts of betrayal. Derby is rapidly
becoming a waste-land, a hotch potch of
uncoordinated development where the council
itself blatantly bends and breaks the rules on
consultation and planning and attempts to
hoodwink the public at every turn. Until these
despots are removed from office once and for all
and replaced by Independent councillors who care
for the area in which they live and work, the
people of Derby have only more bad decisions, bad
tax hikes and bad news to look forward to.
Whatever problem that has arisen with Derby just
lately, the buck has been passed back and
forwards from one party to another like a hot
potato. Councillors are resorting to calling one
another schoolboy names such as
‘smelly’. With such people in control
the rot cannot be contained. Our heritage is
fading from us at an unprecedented rate of knots,
Aslin’s bus station isn’t going because
it is inefficient, it is because the same people
who have allowed St Helen’s House to fall
into such a terrible state through lack of
maintenance are the ones who have done exactly
the same thing to the bus station and who think
that by selling them off to private investors
they can rid themselves of any associated
problems that they themselves stood for election
to help to overcome.
If you, the people of Derby do not stand up and
be counted, then you only have yourselves to
blame. Elvaston Castle is the next one on the
list. A hotel and a golf course is planned, with
very limited and restricted public access, which
will become a playground only for those wealthy
enough to use it. The people who are making these
decisions are the ones who keep raising our taxes
to pay for their ineptitude. Perhaps if we were
to let the Council House fall into disrepair and
sell off the contents, knock it down and build
the trendily (and profitable for private
enterprise) mixture of restaurants, wine bars,
cinemas and flats, we might begin to prevent the
rot which issues from there from continuing to
pervade the rest of the City.
In the meantime, say goodbye to the Bus Station,
Allestree Hall, Elvaston Castle and some fine
furniture thought to have been bought by William
Strutt himself.
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