The Marble Arch Mound

• WESTMINSTER Conservatives claim that with 250,000 visitors over the past six months, spending £6million on the failed Marble Arch Mound was somehow justified.

So let’s look at the facts: 600,000 people visit Oxford Street every day. This works out at more than four million people visiting Oxford Street each week.

In all, over 200 million people visit Oxford Street every year. This means that the Conservatives have spent £6million of public money attracting less than half of one day’s total number of visitors to Oxford Street.

In terms of economic impact this is just “a drop in the ocean” and would have had absolutely no effect on the success of any of the businesses along Oxford Street.

If the Conservatives had wanted to attract shoppers back to Oxford Street they would have been better off giving 250,000 Westminster residents a voucher for £24 to spend in one of Oxford Street’s shops, cafés or bars.

Or the £6million could have been better spent on reopening the youth clubs closed by the Conservatives. Or spent on installing CCTV at crime “hotspots”. Or tackling the growing number of illegally dumped mounds of rubbish on Westminster streets.

The mound has been the most spectacular failure of recent times. Prime minister Boris Johnson’s Westminster Conservatives have once again proved to be world class at wasting money. It’s time for them to go.

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Labour City Management Spokesperson
City Hall, Victoria Street, SW1