The Westmorland Gazette has a story on the improvements which will be made to Highgate but has ignored who is actually paying for it and, more importantly, who should be paying for it.

South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) has ‘contributed’ £160,000 of the cost but nowhere does it mention that K Shopping Village should have paid SLDC £100,000 of the cost, under what is called a Section 106 agreement, which in very simple terms is their contribution to Kendal as a result of being given planning permission for the Shopping Village.

Amazingly SLDC have allowed K Shopping Village to ‘defer’ the payment which means that we (the council taxpayers) are having to pay for it instead! And as far as I can tell there is no guarantee that the money will ever be paid.

I’m not alone in my worries either. Councillor Tom Harvey, in the comments on an earlier story, said

I didn’t say I agree with taking the risk, in fact I don’t because I have real concerns that we may not see the money from K-village.

What really interests me in these difficult economic times is will K Shopping Village allow its tenants to ‘defer’ their rent and will SLDC allow businesses to ‘defer’ their business rates?

Personally I doubt it.