TOWN Hall chiefs are hailing the impact of their controversial £211 million purchase of Birchwood Park as the council almost balanced its revenue books.

Helen Jones, Labour MP for Warrington North, was one of several voices to slam Warrington Borough Council last year for buying the business park through an offshore company ‘to avoid around £10 million in tax’.

But executive board members insist the purchase was the right call, and the council’s latest budget report shows that the business park has begun to claw back funds for the council.

It shows that the council ended 2017-18 with a revenue overspend of £124,000 – a sharp drop on the £6 million overspend it expected to make last summer.

Cllr Russ Bowden, deputy leader, said: “The bulk of the work that has been done there is the income that we have driven through Birchwood Park this year, in the first year of ownership.

“If we hadn’t made that decision around Birchwood Park we could have spent all of our reserves and I think that wouldn’t have been a good use of the reserves.”

The council says that £5.2 million of the improvement from the forecast it made following the first quarter is from ‘positive financial returns’ from its commercial activities – including loans to registered social providers, gains on its investment portfolio and revenue income from Birchwood Park.

The investment property portfolio, which includes Birchwood Park, is forecast to generate revenue of £4.5 million in 2018-19.

Cllr Terry O’Neill, leader of Warrington Borough Council, added: “What we’ve done as an administration, despite the austerity measures, we have delivered a lot of regeneration in this town.

“And a lot of regeneration means that we’ve got funding in place to offset the austerity measures, and that’s very important – it’s absolutely massive.”

Labour criticised the council in May – calling on all public bodies to ‘lead by example’ in the fight against tax evasion.