Could the financial disasters of Waltham Forest council be about to make the big time? They’re really too fascinating to keep to ourselves.

I had a posting on my blog last week, which unfortunately I only saw today. So I hope I haven’t missed the chance of contacting ‘Chrisbo’, a financial reporter who lived in Walthamstow in the 1990s, then moved away and returned here in 2007. What a shock to see a thriving town and community so depleted.

“This is the only borough I am aware of in London that regressed, not progressed, over one of the most prosperous times the city has ever seen,” wrote Chrisbo. “I am a financial journalist for a large news organisation and would be interested if anyone has stories to tell about the dreadful mismanagement of a borough which has so much missed potential.”

OK Chrisbo, where can I start? With the disappearance of millions of pounds of government money, intended for a ‘poor fund’ to benefit the most deprived areas? Or the impossibility of finding paperwork for lucrative contracts that should have been put to tender? The donation of several acres of public land to Waltham Forest Muslim Burial Trust -- surprisingly valued by the council as worthless? Or the many hundreds of thousands spent on ‘consultations’ which have all been ignored? The £3.5 million spent on an inept makeover of Walthamstow Library, leaving the listed building structurally damaged and unusable in parts? The massive cost of buying out leases and demolishing the town-centre arcade, to leave the site empty for a decade (so far)?

Or … well, contact me at j@freelance-journalist.co.uk , Chrisbo, and I’ll tell you all I know.

Dedicated activists have dug out a lot of Waltham Forest’s secrets. That nearly a quarter of a million library books (many of them saleable for high prices) were sent from around the borough to Edmonton incinerator, for example. And that a survey meant to identify the areas most in need of government aid contained nearly 40% nonexistent postcodes -- how much did that worthless survey cost? And so much more… Did you go to the 2007 public meeting where an increasingly gobsmacked audience gradually realised the council was offering to give our priceless William Morris art collection to a south London group that didn’t even have a building to put it in? And in return we’d be allowed to see a few exhibits now and then, during much-reduced hours at our own gallery? I wish I could see film of it: the disbelief and slow realisation dawning on one face after another, in a stunned silence before the sudden burst of “YOU WHAT??!!”. That mad plan was stopped by the sheer wave of outrage it caused. Do they squander our assets so eagerly because they haven’t a clue what anything’s worth?

The Cultural Cull had just started when you came back in 2007, and activist groups had sprung up to protect all kinds of amenities under threat from spending cuts. The cuts were approved (by all Labour and Lib Dem councillors) at a meeting where they also voted themselves a pay rise of nearly 30%. That pay rise costs us an extra £210,000 a year, compared with, say, the £70,000 it would have needed to keep St James Street Library open.

Stories to tell, Chrisbo? How much time have you got? And all you residents who have looked into the murk of Waltham Forest council and pulled out gems of information, if you contact me at at j@freelance-journalist.co.uk , I can put you in touch. Please form an orderly queue.