The Marble Arch Mound

• SO Westminster Conservatives have voted to keep open the failed £6million Marble Arch Mound, even though most Conservative councillors admit privately that the mound has been a spectacular disaster on all fronts.

It is £4million over budget, no one will pay to go up the mound, and when you get to the top all you can see are trees and traffic jams.

And the costs to Westminster council tax payers continue to pile up.

Every month Westminster residents must pay £150,00 just to keep the £6million Marble Arch Mound open. This is the monthly cost that the council has to pay its contractors to keep open London’s worst tourist attraction.

And to add insult to injury, the council has no idea how many mound visitors are shopping in Oxford Street.

The point of building the mound was to attract shoppers back to Oxford Street. But the city council has commissioned no research to ask mound visitors if they are combining the trip with a visit to the shops and how much they have spent.

So much more could have been achieved with £6million. More police, more teachers, more nurses, more homes. The list is endless.

Yet the Westminster Conservatives plough on regardless of public opinion or the facts. It really is time for a change. We can do much better than this.

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Labour City Management Spokesperson
Westminster City Hall, SW1