Officials forgot to mention true costs

Letter: I enjoyed reading the article in the Shropshire Star about the wonderful new Theatre Severn, but it is a shame that Geraint Morgan forgot to explain how the local taxpayers will be expected to dig deeper into their pockets.

He explained that the budget was in total £28 million - £24m to build and £4m invested to earn interest to subsidise the running of the theatre. I believe that he is wrong and that the budget was £23m to build and £5m invested.

To date, the amount spent building the theatre is nearly £27m, so if you add to that the £4m that they want to invest, that totals £31m - 10 per cent over budget or simply £3,000,000 too much.

Will anyone from the council be made accountable for this overspend?

For many people who pay their council tax, that overspend could have been used for other things, rather than leaving behind a monument to ego of a few members of the council - it is a disgrace.

And to rub salt into the wounds, the council is not going to earn anything like the interest that it thought it was.

I calculate that it would have earned about £250,000 in interest to help run the theatre when the scheme was conceived.

Now the council will be lucky if it earns £50,000, so who is going to make up the shortfall of £200,000?

Yes, you guessed it, the local taxpayer, lets hope the place does not lose money or there will surely be another bill.

Richard Breeze, Telford