Springfields' investment in Spalding Water Taxi, town centre manager and more
Details of how nearly £1million resulting from a Spalding retail development has been invested can now be revealed by the Lincolnshire Free Press.
A town centre manager's salary, the formation of the Spalding Water Taxi service and a pedestrian link between Holland Market and Sheep Market are just three of the items on which money from the Springfields Outlet Shopping and Leisure complex has been spent.
A Freedom of Information request from the Free Press to South Holland District Council asked for a full breakdown of how contributions towards improving Spalding town centre from Springfields had been spent since the retail site first opened in 2004.
From a total of just under £973,000 contributed by Springfields, just over £800,000 has been spent, while another £91,335 has been set aside for a new bandstand at Ayscoughfee Gardens and repairs to buildings within Spalding's Conservation Area, which includes the town centre.
The largest amount spent on any one item was just over £211,000 on extra parking in the town centre, while nearly £173,200 was spent on establishing and improving the water taxi service between Double Street and Springfields.
Another £92,000 went on the salary of a Spalding Town Centre Manager between 2014 and 2016, although just under £3,420 of this was refunded after the role was disbanded.
In contrast, the Friends of Chain Bridge Forge, responsible for the running of the 19th century blacksmith's workshop in High Street, received £10,500 during the same period.
Other projects funded by the Springfields' investment included £43,707 on Spalding's Swan Walk and Red Lion Street areas, £24,700 on the town's Christmas lights in 2012 and 2013, nearly £18,120 on new signage and just over £66,250 on a South Holland-wide Conservation Area scheme.
Coun Roger Gambba-Jones, the district council's portfolio holder for planning and development management, said: "Some of the investment we made wasn't well-targeted, based on a degree of naivety on our part, having never seen something like this and having never attempted before to target it in the way we tried to.
"One of the best aspects of it was the employment of a town centre manager and the only regret that I have was that we couldn't see a way of maintaining that position and expanding it into a whole district role.
"The other big investment that was made, and is still there, is the water taxi which has been a great success and a very pleasing investment.
"Other things will be highlighted that people will look at and say 'that was a waste of money'.
"But without doing the initial work, we couldn't have got the better stuff that generated the results we needed."
