A local Borough Council Labour leader blames the government for placing other conditions on the cashfor Covid-19 relief, which he says are holding up the process of handing it out. So he now wants to dip into the authority’s reserves to make the payments to affected businesses in the borough immediately and get the money back from the government later.

And no, it isn’t the Labour Leader of West Lancashire, the council that last week farted around to explain why it wouldn’t use any of its circa £24million useable reserves in this way.

Paul Foster of South Ribble Borough “I’m not critical of any of my fellow Lancashire leaders in this it’s the government who keep coming back and saying they can’t agree to this or that and telling us what is or isn’t included. We agreed a per capita allocation straight away and I think it just shows that the [negotiations over the funding deal] were a bit of a stitch-up it hadn’t been fully considered and it was more about government PR than anything else.

“Ultimately, I just want local businesses and the community to get the support that they need” Cllr Foster said.

And so do we all!