Recession Mitigation Report

I'm just off to meet with some of the traders from Macclesfield Town Centre about (amongst other things) the Recession group report which was passed by Cabinet this week.

If you're interested, you can read the full report here:
http://onlineservices.congleton.gov.uk/ecminutes/mgConvert2PDF.asp?ID=2969

Some excellent ideas have come out of this group, and a couple that I'm not so sure are as wise.

For example, spending £60,000 on flashy websites to attract tourists may not be the best use of money. I also hope that all of this money is going to be spent evenly around Cheshire East - considering that 10% has already been earmarked for Knutsford. (For a floral walk, apparently).

However there's one point that could be really worthwhile and I misunderstood the implications when I first read it. It wasn't until I spoke to Jamie Macrae last night that I got to grips with it.

Two measures are suggested that will increase the take up of benefits to those eligible. These two measure will cost us £115,000. It initially didn't make sense to me...why would be want to spend that much (a third of all measures) to encourage benefit claims? (Which will cost us more money, nationally).

Jamie Macrae tells me that there is considered to be upwards of a Million pounds in unclaimed benefits for people in Cheshire East. Evidence shows that if this money is claimed, 80 pence in every pound gets put back into the local economy. Therefore, spending just over £100k now should bring over £800k into the borough.

Sounds like a good deal to me.