Quay questions

Many of you will have read the front page and inside article on Monday, October 11, relating to the Audit Commission's report into the Dolphin Quays development on Poole Quay and been left with the impression Poole council got things badly wrong.

The truth is that headline could easily have read "Council cleared".

The challenge considered by the Audit Commission was that the Council did not get the best possible value for the people of Poole as a result of its negotiations on the Dolphin Quays development.

The conclusion of the Audit Commission in this report is that the Council DID get value for money for the people of Poole.

Instead, the Echo chose largely to ignore this fact.

The resulting article concentrated largely on a minor point raised by the auditor into the council's record keeping - a valid point and rightly raised. But The Audit Commission report did not "damn" the council's record keeping and I can categorically reassure residents and partners that there is certainly no suggestion in the report of "destroyed documents".

The auditor was kind enough to write to me stating he also took issue with the Echo's article of October 11 as it was not a true reflection of his conclusions. Perhaps the tone of the story should have been much more in line with the comments made by the Echo's own Opinion writer Peter Tate who described the report's conclusions as "a slight rap on the knuckles".

Comments about the council's record keeping are important - but the truth is the report's findings only served to reinforce our own conclusions we reached two years ago that we should improve the quality of note-keeping at meetings. This does not refer to decision-taking meetings where the notes are clear, full and available for everyone to see via our website but to less formal meetings/discussions that happen during the normal business of the council.

Anything of this nature we take extremely seriously and ensure it is thoroughly answered. This included a full two-day Scrutiny Committee hearing in 2001. With the level of public interest in this development this latest report was undertaken by the Audit Commission and took over two years to complete, at a cost to local council taxpayers of well in excess of £30,000.

The article of October 11 has been damaging to the morale of 5,000 staff who each day perform a vast range of services with professionalism, dedication and passion. Our clients, customers and business contacts have also been left unfairly questioning the integrity of this council.

On behalf of the council's staff and councillors I can honestly say I was shocked and disappointed at the treatment of the story in the Daily Echo. I am proud to work for an organisa-tion that is responsible for so many quality services, and daily I see our staff going about their tasks with great enthusiasm because they believe in what they are doing.

And they will continue to do so.

In the meantime I would urge people to read the report themselves which is available on www.boroughofpoole.com/ yourcouncil. Please make up your own mind.

Echo editor Neal Butterworth replies

I am happy to clarify John McBride's point about our headline "Destroyed documents" which featured in our coverage of the Audit Commission report.

This was unsubstantiated by evidence provided by the report and therefore incorrect.

The continuing saga of Orb Estates and the Dolphin Quays development has been a complex and frustrating issue and one that the Echo has brought to its readers since its inception.

Mistakes have been made along the way, accepted both by ourselves and the council, but

the plain fact is that many questions have been left unanswered about the influence of those people outside our two organisations.

As a newspaper, we will continue to work hard to ensure that those questions have answers.

The Echo has worked hard in recent years to forge relationships with the Borough of Poole to promote the town and we will continue to do so in the future.

First published: Oct 25