Walsall schools' £800k still to be spent
More than £800,000 paid to Walsall Council by developers and earmarked for education facilities is still waiting to be spent, it has emerged.
A total of £1.37 million has been given to the borough council since March last year by developers as a condition of planning permission, but has not yet been invested.
The biggest unspent payment comes up to £222,000, which was paid by developers behind a 108 home development at the former Bloxwich Engineering company site at Bell Lane, Bloxwich.
The original planning application for the development was submitted back in 2009, with the money earmarked to be spent on secondary education.
It is yet to be allocated and will be lost if it isn't spent by next August.
Other unspent contributions include £135,000 allocated for the secondary sector from an apartments and houses development in Wednesbury, plans for which were first put forward in 2006.
Councillor Doug James, who represents Darlaston North and has spoke out on the borough's poor education standing since the latest Ofsted inspection, said: "Section 106 money has been massively underspent by the borough council over the last few years and this is another considerable amount of money that is not being spent.
"When you consider our current educational crisis, it is an appalling amount of money to not be spending.
"Our buildings need improving and our children need better equipment, but there seems to be no urgency on this.
"In the past, a lot of section 106 money has been spent on parks, which is fine, but where is the investment in our education?"
Council Leader Mike Bird said: "It is not uncommon to have money outstanding. 106 money is given to us by the developers at a particularly point in time. If you take the old St Margaret's Hospital site the trigger point there was when they had built 350 homes. Some time there are two triggers.
"The other thing is the money can only be spent on defined purposes.
"Let's take for instance open space. You can only plant trees at a certain time of the year."
Referring directly to the £222,000 from the Bloxwich development he added: "We have had the money in and it may not have been spent but until the building work has been programmed in.
"We have got until August 2017 to spend it. What we would normally do is spend that during the school holidays when the contract is let and we would not be disrupting the pupils."
