Staggering cost of light fitting in new council offices

The £16,000 light fitting at Number 1 Riverside

Rochdale Borough Council has spent over £16,000 on a light fitting for the new council municipal office, ‘Number One Riverside’.

The light fitting is in the entrance lobby and consists of five tubes - that's a staggering £3,250 per tube!

Construction of the £50 million building, which houses council offices, a library and customer service centre, has taken almost a year and during that time the council has been closing care homes, cutting provision for the homeless, scrapping grants to local voluntary groups and making a lot of council workers redundant.

One council employee said: "To see such a huge amount of money being wasted on a light fitting with the cuts and redundancies that have been going on is scandalous. Councillors and management have their priorities all wrong."

The revelation of the costly light fitting comes as Council Leader Colin Lambert's administration is set to raise council tax by an outrageous 3.5% and use a loophole to circumvent a council tax referendum, which should be held as the 3.5% is above the referendum threshold of a 2% rise in council tax.