The recent discovery of a cannabis farm in the “disused” (closed?) public conveniences on New Road in Kendal is a shining example of  South Lakeland District Council’s attitude to local residents, local businesses and visitors.

My office faces these public conveniences which are on the other side of the River Kent. Ever since SLDC decided to close them there has been a steady stream of people urinating (and worse) against the back wall of the building. After a complaint to our local councillor, SLDC erected wire fences at the back and side. It wasn’t a perfect solution but it did reduce the number of users.

Sadly, when the fair left in September they took the fencing with them! I phoned SLDC and told them the area was once again being used as a toilet and was told in no uncertain terms that they already knew about it and they were arranging for the fair to return and re-fit the panels. I did add that I hoped the fair was paying for any costs involved.

A few weeks later the newly replaced panels were removed by SLDC to allow a survey of the car park but nobody refitted them. They were left leaning against the wall! So guess what happened? Somebody threw them into the river! I didn’t contact the council again because of their attitude previously. One of the panels was clearly visible  as it had fallen back against the banking of the river.

Nothing happened until late October when after some very heavy rain it was washed down the river and through Miller Bridge . The recent rain has now washed it further down the river and out of sight.

What puzzles me is why, if as stated by SLDC  “The council inspects its premises on a monthly basis to ensure public safety. New Road toilets were part of a regular programme and when the building was last inspected on November 14, there was no evidence of a breach of security”, has it taken until last Friday for the fencing to be replaced?

Nearly three months and presumably at least a couple of “inspections” to do something!

P.S. I will not mention the cost of replacing the panel which they allowed to be washed down the river! It’s not their money it’s ours.

I come across dozens of business names every day; some obvious, some boring, some corny but very few which are genuinely funny.

Yesterday, when I was looking for a client’s office on  Google I came across this one

Wash My Wheelie

Wonderful.

We need more chartered accountants like Mad Mike Hoare. 

Instead of throwing him out of the Institute he should have been made President and C.E.O.

I can’t see him kowtowing to Dave Hartnett at HMRC.

Next Monday (December 5th) is the start of Mintfest’s appeal to raise vital funds for next year’s festival.

I have said before that there are more deserving causes than Mintfest at Christmas but what really puzzles me is why do they need this money?

I know they have lost £250,000 of funding which was previously provided by the Northwest Regional Development Agency but they did receive £290,000 of “new money” earlier this year from Arts Council England, which in very simple terms means they are £40,000 “better off”, rather than facing “a hole left after the closure of the North West Regional Development Agency”, as reported in the Westmorland Gazette this week.

I am very conscious that I am not in possession of the full facts behind Mintfest’s appeal for “vital funds” but if Mintfest was a charity, which it isn’t, it would have to publish very detailed accounts like the ones from  Multi Cultural Arts .

At least the public would then be able to make an informed decision about how great Mintfest’s needs really are.

Last March the Office of Tax Simplification published  Review of tax reliefs – final report.

I have not mentioned the 191 page report before because I have spent the time since it was published trying to buy a bottle of Black Beer, which is described on the label as

“….. a drop of Yorkshire history.”

Dating back to 1901, Mather’s is the last known surviving Black Beer being produced in the UK.  Famous enough to feature in the Yorkshire Post, the beer’s  high Vitamin C content meant it was popular with mining communities. During the Second World War when rationing was brought in there was a move to stop its production, but because miners were so important to the war effort and needed their supply of Black Beer it was saved.

Its origins can be traced back to the mid 16th-century and a drink made from the mashed leaves of the Spruce Pine. A 100 or so years later, and with the addition of a little barley and malt, the story goes that Captain Cook became one of its greatest advocates believing that a large daily dose kept his sailors free from scurvy and setting up a brewery in New Zealand to make sure they had enough supplies for the long journey home.

Returning to the report of the Office of Tax Simplification you must be wondering what on earth Black Beer has to do with tax. All is revealed on page 169 when the report states

Black beer is exempt from excise duties. This exemption was originally introduced in FA
1930 s2(1) and is now in the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979 s1(3)(a). It is also exempt from
customs duties by virtue of a derogation negotiated by the UK17

Quite frankly, who cares? Well the Office of Tax Simplification does because it is suggesting that this exemption is abolished to “simplify” tax law.

Really?

How much difference will this make to the typical small business trying to understand the complexities of Self Assessment, corporation tax, VAT and PAYE?

I can think of a better way to simplify tax law, abolish the Office of Tax Simplification and speak to some small businesses and their accountants.

South Lakeland District Council’s policy of closing public conveniences has put South Lakeland on the world map.

Just this week, I learned that Staveley’s community run loos have been twinned with conveniences in Cambodia to highlight the universal need for public toilet facilities.

I’m just not certain if this is Cambodia telling Staveley or vice versa.

Bearing in mind the worsening situation in South Lakeland, I think we’re being lectured by Cambodia.

The North West Development Agency’s (NWDA) answer to my  Freedom of Information request ,  “When you lent the money to the above company did you ask for personal guarantees from all or any of the directors?” is

The due diligence checks on individual requests for funding from for the Transitional Loan Fund were undertaken by Fund Managers on behalf of NWDA and in this case the Fund Manager did ask for, and obtain, a personal guarantee from the sole director of Lucy’s of Ambleside Ltd prior to the loan being advanced.

Which, in a word, is puzzling because when the money was given to Lucy’s of Ambleside Limited there were two directors, Lucy Nicholson and her husband, Brian Nicholson as shown on  the company’s Annual Return which was filed at Companies House on 8 October 2009 ( the money was given to the company on 27 May 2009 )  and Brian Nicholson didn’t resign until 1 July 2010. Details of his resignation were filed at Companies House on 21 October 2010.

What difference does all this make? Quite a lot really, because when the NWDA found out their loan wasn’t going to be repaid in full they were obliged to fall back on any additional security which they had arranged when the loan was granted. Lucy Nicholson was declared bankrupt earlier this year which meant that the guarantee given to the NWDA was worthless. If, however, they had obtained guarantees from all the directors they would have been able to claim against Lucy Nicholson’s husband, Brian.

I have no idea if this would have made any difference but I cannot understand how the NWDA’s “due diligence checks” failed to reveal that Lucy Nicholson was not “the sole director of Lucy’s of Ambleside Limited” when the information was available to the public.

And without details of Brian Nicholson’s financial position I cannot say if a personal guarantee from him would have allowed the NWDA to recover some of our (the taxpayers’) lost money.

What I would like to know is why so much much money was given to such a financially weak company without minimising the risk of loss?

My next Freedom of Information request?

Earlier this month I wrote to the NWDA asking if they had taken personal guarantees from the directors of Lucy’s of Ambleside Limited when they lent them £250,000, which bearing in mind the lack of suitable security would have been nothing more than good ‘banking’ practice. Yesterday I received this reply.

Leaving aside the question of why the NWDA couldn’t have forwarded my e-mail to Capital for Enterprise Ltd, I e-mailed my request to David Campbell and immediately received this ‘reply’

The following message to <david.campbell@capitalforenterprise.co.uk> was undeliverable. The reason for the problem:  5.1.0 – Unknown address error 550-’5.7.1 Unable to relay’

At the same time as I asked the NWDA about personal guarantees, I sent another e-mail to them:

Guess what? No reply! After all though, it’s only public, taxpayers’ our money, so why should the NWDA care?

I was amused to discover that Mark Cullinan, the chief executive of Lancaster City Council (just down the road from Kendal), has been nominated in the “Shit of the Year” category of the Rotten Boroughs awards.

The nomination has arisen from an incident last April outside the city’s Toast nightclub at 2.26am. I should add at this point that Lancaster City Council have decided that Mr Cullinan did not contravene any of the authority’s policies or procedures when he got involved in a late-night row with a taxi driver.

The row between the taxi driver and Mr Cullinan’s friend, Graham Atkinson, who insisted that the cab had bumped into him, injuring his knee, escalated when Cullinan wrote a comment underneath the You Tube footage which the taxi driver had shot of Atkinson walking around after the incident.

He also according to the Lancaster Guardian

invited interested parties to come and see photos of Mr Atkinson’s alleged injuries on Morecambe Town Hall steps.

It appears, however, that the reason Mr Cullinan has been nominated for the “Shit of the Year” awards is his willingness , in Private Eye’s words, to resort to Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne, claiming that the Lancaster Guardian newspaper and a community website, virtual-lancaster, had libelled him in reporting the story. The newspaper told Pannone LLP (representing Cullinan) to get lost and have heard no more. Sadly Christine Satori, who runs virtual-lancaster, is being pursued for damages and costs – currently estimated at £15,000 and counting.

This morning the HMRC website wasn’t working. At the back of my mind I thought it was due to a previously announced upgrade. Wanting to check this I clicked on the Online Services Info button on the HMRC homepage

I then clicked Service availablity

to be told the service was unavailable but at least by clicking on here I could find out more.

Unfortunately I was presented with this!