WHAT is it with Malvern councils and the desire to spend large sums of public money on new offices, are they not getting the message?

When Malvern Town Council spent £600,000 on doing up the former Manders chemist, it caused a public outcry, a parish poll called for the whole council to resign and, come the election, most of the councillors lost their seats.

In 2002, the Conservative/Independent group, which then ran Malvern Hills District Council, proposed moving to a new single site at a cost of £4.6 million. Again, it was controversial, again the councillors were heavily defeated at the 2003 election, although to what extent this single issue played a role is hard to say.

The Liberal Democrats who took over clearly thought it was important, because not long after that election the new council leader, Tom Wells, made a point of abandoning the plan and declaring it to be a poor use of public money. So what's changed since 2003?

If anything this new plan looks even worse value for money. Not only is the cost now £6.5 million, but we are not even talking about a single site. This new building would only be for staff now working at Portland House and Highlea, plus some from the Council House, little more than 100 staff.

Of course, there will be efficiency savings from being on one site, but the council has no idea, as yet, what these would be. It says most of the cost would be funded from the sale of buildings, but this is still public money.

If the council wants to sell off surplus buildings fine, but spend the money on something the public needs. Please, no more monuments to council ambition.