Perkins on the never-never
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THE OUTLOOK is grim when Perkins, the world's biggest maker of diesel engines, is unable to meet the half-year rate bill on its Peterborough factory and has asked to be allowed to pay by monthly instalments.
As the annual sum is £1 m and the rates were increased this year by a fifth, the city council may be killing the goose that has laid many golden eggs for the people of Peterborough.
Meanwhile, a financial contratemps on a smaller scale has happened at Consett, where Durham County Council has been left with an incomplete staff canteen at the bus station because the bus company cannot afford the £9,000 a year rent, The Transport and General Workers' Union says it cannot find the money, either. So the company is to spend £10,000 on modernising the old canteen.
Geese, it seems, are being killed left, right and centre.