Honestly, if we replied to every Cllr Tim Prater (Lib Dem) article, we’d get little done.
Cllr Tim Prater (Lib Dem) is claiming victory for a helping a resident over a replacement “residual waste” (non-recycling) bin which was damaged in the course of its regular collection and emptying.
Back on track, the policy wasn’t changed when Cllr Prater claims. Oh no, it was amended on the 16th April 2019 far earlier than he claims, as the video from an overview and scrutiny meeting makes abundantly clear. This was latter rubber stamped by Cabinet in 2019 and became policy, so much earlier than Cllr Prater claims.
Cllr Prater also claims that Seagull proof sacks for refuse collections are now avaliable in Sandgate. But again the video makes it perfectly clear that seagull proof sacks have been available to residents of Sandgate and elsewhere in the district since the 16th April 2019. He could have got them for his parishioners back then, but didn’t. We do wonder why.
Also he tells us the Council are holding £101,000 of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) money for Town and Parish Councils; and that £48,735 has been doled out. However he’s wrong, for 2019/20 alone the CIL money collected and held by the Council was £401,265, and that doesn’t include the s106 money. But as we said, if we replied to every thing Cllr Prater espoused, we’d get little done.
Cllr Prater claims time and again, since his election, he has had a “victory”, when in fact the opposite is true as others who preceded him have cleared up the matter. We could go on citing further examples, but as we said, if we replied to every Cllr Prater article, we’d get little done.
We cannot forget, nor must we forget when Cllr Prater was a KCC Cllr between 2009 -2013, the PFI contracts for schools experienced a seven months delay and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Kent taxpayer.
But it doesn’t stop there. KCC council tax payers between 2010 and 2020 have paid in excess of £250 million for these PFI school contracts; and the money has gone to known offshore companies in known tax havens, assisted by a vote from Cllr Prater.
These school PFI contracts will receive their last payments in another 15 years time. By then they will have received in excess of £650 million, assisted by Cllr Prater‘s vote.
He also signed off (along with others), £60 million pounds worth of controversial LOBO loans, taken with the Royal Bank of Scotland, in his time as a Cllr at KCC. It cost KCC £13.4 million premium to escape the contract with RBS.
So, when Cllr Prater utters something on his webpage, or in the paper about the Brexit clearance post at Ashford being in the wrong location, he really ought to do a little more research, as the site is there for a reason. That reason is a strategic one for a freeport in East Kent.
And let’s not forget he’s taking the Monk shilling for being in the Cabinet.
So people be careful of Cllr Prater’s self promotion, as publicly available evidence shows when one scratches the surface, another story appears. One could consider Cllr Prater’s PR, fake news, but we’ll let you be the judge of that.
