Telling half a story

I HAVE seen a recent Liberal Democrat Focus leaflet for Wick and Toddington which accuses Arun District Council of “spending £200,000 on refurbishing what are basically modern offices”.

As always this is only half the story and pretty inaccurate at that. However, I can explain briefly what the redesign and refurbishment has achieved.

First of all, Arun’s reception facilities are now available to the public in one purpose-designed reception area on the ground floor which will provide a far better service to our residents.

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Secondly, the Civic Centre now houses all the Arun staff who were previously based in Church Street and at the East Preston depot.

This now allows Arun to dispose of both Church Street and the depot for substantial sums which will far exceed the sum quoted in the news-sheet.

Thirdly, the annual running costs of our buildings have reduced by large sums.

For the first time since the council was formed in 1974, we have all our major services based in one office.

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This will save the council over £50,000 per year on the day-to-day running costs of the Church Street offices and a further £300,000 in not having to carry out planned maintenance and improvements to that building over the next three to five years.

I hope that this sets the record straight.

Councillor Gillian Brown

leader of Arun District Council

Civic Centre, Littlehampton