A row has broken out between Mansfield's MP and Mayor over its council's projected £20million spend on a block of London flats. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported last year that Mansfield District Council was facing the high bill to fix fire safety problems at the flats in Clapham.
The council has allocated almost £19m to be spent on the building over the next three years, on top of nearly nearly £950,000 already spent on it since issues came to light. The latter amount was revealed in an FOI submitted by the LDRS and the total amount has caused controversy in the town.
But now, Labour's Elected Mayor of Mansfield, Andy Abrahams, says he is "outraged" about comments made by the town's Conservative MP on the issue. Ben Bradley was a guest on the BBC's Politics East Midlands Programme on Sunday (March 12).
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During a broader discussion on local housing, Mr Bradley said: "In my area in Mansfield, the Labour Council has spent £20m from its housing budget buying properties in Edinburgh, buying properties in London, instead of investing in building homes in Mansfield."
Mr Abrahams says he will be asking the BBC to speak with Ben Bradley and ask him to retract these comments. The Mansfield Mayor says the properties were not purchased whilst Labour was in control of the council which he leads.
He says the London property was officially bought when the council was under the control of the Mansfield Independent Forum and that the initial decision to purchase was made under an independent Mayor nine years ago. Mr Abrahams said: "My election pledge in 2019 before I was elected the first Labour Mayor of Mansfield was to stop investing money outside our area.
"As soon as I was elected, I carried out my promise and have since attracted £150m of investment into Mansfield." Mr Abrahams also said: "[Ben Bradley] must have been living under a rock for the last two years and be the most ill-informed politician in Nottinghamshire."
But responding to Mr Abrahams' complaint, Mr Bradley said: "It's incredibly frustrating that a Mayor who just last week was putting motions forward at his council calling for cooperation, consistently seems to prefer to write public letters calling me names rather than actually talk to me about things. He's not raised this with me at all, only written to the media about me without my knowledge.
"This approach is not co-operation, and it's detrimental to us trying to achieve things for Mansfield. I've committed a huge amount of time and effort to trying to get leaders from across the whole county working together, with great success in some places.
"But in Mansfield that is constantly undermined by the Mayor being unable to show any kind of professionalism. I'm looking forward to upcoming elections when I hope we might end up with a grown up in charge at Mansfield District Council."
But Mr Abrahams added: "Our positive approach has made Mansfield one of the biggest areas for private investment and house building in the East Midlands. I think there is substantial evidence the Labour administration are delivering on housing, which [Ben Bradley] should be praising and promoting as [Mansfield's] MP, not dragging it down and falsely criticising the district for not performing."
Mr Abrahams is one of four candidates who have announced so far that they will be running to be Mansfield Mayor during local elections being held on May 4. Other candidates include Mick Barton, standing for the Mansfield Independents, Andre Camilleri, standing for the Conservative Party, and Karen Seymour, standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
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