Making jobs and money for Stoke-on-Trent.

  What this city needs is money invested in it that will create jobs for the people, and income for the city council.
"How the **** do we do that?" I hear you cry.
Simple.

   Remember when the city council lost £5 million when the Icelandic bank, Landsbanksi collapsed?
That £5 million was only a little part of the cash sum the city council had invested in banks and building societies all round the world, in fact, the total was £92,784,000.00. Nearly £93million, that's a lot of money.
   £13 million was what's known as "on call", meaning it was a very short term investment, sometimes just overnight, but the remaining £80 million was not ring fenced.

  So, it was decided that overseas investment was too dangerous at that time to risk our money, so in their infinite wisdom, the morons of the finance department agreed to the investing of £50 million of your tax money with the Labour government. For a £50 million investment, Stoke-on-Trent gets about £30,000 in interest!

  What a bloody waste of money!

Instead of sticking all this cash into an account where the government gets to keep the interest, why not invest the £50 million right here in the city?
Why not do something with it that would create local jobs, and give the city a long term income?

England First Party say that the money currently being used to fund the tosspots in Westminster should be used instead to build two, bio-mass plants, one in the north of the city, one in the south.
These plants produce energy from waste products, so grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, waste food, can all be used right here in the city to produce our own electricity.
  This is the real potential. Two plants might support a hundred jobs, but producing enough electricity to cover nearly all of the city means we can do deals with a range of people in order to provide many more job opportunities.
For instance, we could say to businesses in the city, we'll sell you cheap electricity if you take on a dozen full time apprentices. Their electric bill gets halved, school leavers that don't want to continue in full time education would have the chance at a proper trade, something that would give them the skills for a successful future.
We could do something with business rates, if the council ran its own buildings with this electric- heating and lighting, just for the Civic Centre alone you'd be looking at savings around £1.5-£2 million a year.

  The cost of two plants in 2005, when this was put forward to the city council, was £12.6 million each, so let's say that 5 years has seen the price rise to £18 million.
Two plants will cost you £36 million, and if each makes savings of £2 million per year, that's 9 years before we've paid them off. If each plant lasts 30 years, that's 21 years of producing energy thats pure profit apart from the running costs.
Stoke-on-Trent wold gain £2 million a year for 21 years, that's £42 million profit for the city!
With two plants, that would be £84 million for the city!

And doubtlss there would be a stack of different things we could do to kickstart the local economy so that our kids aren't hanging on the street corners with nothing to do, and to ensure that they have a shot at a decent future.

   If you disagree, or you've thought of something that should be included, leave a comment, I'll reply to them all.