Torquay Council blew £11,400 on a single palm tree

Torquay Council is under fire, after it emerged that it had spent an extraordinary amount of money on a palm tree. The council wanted to bring something into the area which would make a dramatic impact, so spent a shocking £7,000 on a 20 foot palm tree - which it stuck on a roundabout. Now it has spent a jaw-dropping £4,400 moving the same tree elsewhere in the town - and the palm tree saga is not over yet.

Buying the tree
The idea was to put the tree on a roundabout that visitors would pass on their way in and out of town - to make a powerful impression. At the time the council leader behind the scheme said it would give people a lasting reminder of their holiday. It's not known how successful a tree can be at providing a vivid and lasting memory - especially when it has to be wrapped in a sack during the winter to protect it from frost - but that was the plan.

The incredible cost came from the fact that the council opted for a large, mature tree, which then had to be imported from Spain. The locals weren't terribly impressed, and have nicknamed it 'the pineapple', but it is certainly making an impression.

Moving decision
Unfortunately, even those who felt £7,000 was money well spent will be highly unimpressed with the latest twist in the palm tree saga. The Mirror has reported that because the town has been developing its roads, the tree had to go in order to make way for a dual carriageway - so it spent £4,400 moving it 300 yards up the road, and sitting it outside a shopping centre.

The cost was revealed by the local branch of the GB union, who told the Daily Mail that "This looks farcical. Council staff facing redundancies would be astonished and aghast at such a waste of public money."

To make matters worse, the Torquay Herald Express reported that even this is just a temporary site, and when the road improvements are done, it's going to have to fork out thousands in order to move the tree again.

Unsurprisingly, locals are unimpressed. They took to Facebook to express their disappointment. Many agreed it was a shocking waste of money. One added: "Absolute joke. The money should be spent on more important issues in the bay." While another pointed out: "It looks like it's struggling after the upheaval so it makes you wonder whether it will cope with yet another move."

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Should we be worried?
The council has defended the tree as part of vital steps to improve the town. It added that the roundabout was sponsored, which helped pay for the tree.

And while this is clearly a usefully striking symbol of council waste and poor decision-making, in the grand scheme of things, it's a fraction of the enormous waste the UK's councils manage to rack up. Last Year the Taxpayers' Alliance claimed to have identified £120 billion in squandered cash.

This included £19,000 on a motivational magician for Cotswold District Council, £330,000 spent by Stoke-on-Trent Council on redundancy packages and then re-hiring 25 members of staff, £40,000 spent by Hull Council on a concert to honour a councillor, and £3 million in biscuits for ministers and officials.

It starts to make the £11,400 palm tree seem like a sideshow.

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