Cambridge Blues
Another council
with perilous finances is Lib-Dem-controlled Cambridgeshire, which is at risk
of going bust in the next couple of years because of the debt albatross that is
its wholly owned building company This Land (Eyes passim). Inherited from a previous Tory regime, This
Land owes the county council at least £113.8m and, pie-in-the-sky business
plans aside, has little prospect of repaying it.
Eighteen months after the council published its draft
2021/22 accounts (Eye 1579), the final audit opinion is still a work in
progress, with a verdict on the viability of This Land still awaited. Since then, This Land has published two sets
of its own accounts and posted £18.4m more losses. In the seven years to March 2023, the company
had sold 53 homes and lost £38.3m – equivalent to £723,000 per sale. During the last financial year, the average
sale price was just £247,000 per home.
Three weeks after the latest accounts were published in October, This
Land’s chief executive David Lewis was “terminated”, less than 18 months after
being confirmed in the job after a period as interim CEO.
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