Debris and Subsidence: Objections to the Duke's Offer: Letter from Kent to the Local Government Board

Description:A letter from George Kent to the secretary of the Local Government Board states that Longton Borough Corporation had ‘neither the power or right to remove the debris’, particularly not at the cost ‘of the Ratepayers’. In the document featured above, Kent remarks that the Duke had also ‘declined to remove the same himself’.

Kent’s letter outlines other objections to the site offered by the Duke for the new Municipal Buildings. He notes that the site was ‘a considerable distance from the business part of the Borough’. In addition, the Town Council suspected that ‘mining operations’ which had taken place underneath and near to the site had caused ‘subsidencies’ which were already evident on the site and which ‘would continue’. Considering these factors, the Council ‘would not be justified in putting the Ratepayers to the risk entailed by such large expenditure’ on the ‘erection of municipal buildings’ on the site.

Kent informed the Local Government Board that the Borough of Longton required the loan they had asked for originally to construct their municipal buildings on ‘the Court House site’ which they had chosen before the Duke’s offer of the Stone Road site. He concludes his letter by adding that if the Board refused to ‘sanction’ the loan this would not lead to ‘the Council accepting the Stone Road site’, and would result in ‘hanging up for an indefinite period a most urgent public requirement’.