WARRINGTON Borough Council’s deputy leader has slammed the ‘mistruths’ over the authority’s investments.

A report on the year-to-date performance of the material schemes that make up the council’s non-treasury investment portfolio came before the cabinet at its meeting on Monday.

Deputy leader Cllr Cathy Mitchell said: “So this is a quarterly report and it’s a public report talking about our investments.

“So whilst you get a lot of mistruths and speculation, people really just need to direct themselves to look at this report that is available on the council website, which will tell you exactly what’s going on with our investments to save people having to make things up.”

Cllr Mitchell stated that the council has borrowed £1.7 billion, which is ‘secured against’ £2.3 billion worth of property.

Meanwhile, council leader Cllr Russ Bowden said it’s ‘reassuring and refreshing’ to hear something ‘more akin to the truth’ about what the council’s non treasury instruments are for and how they are performing.

The report to cabinet also said the council has successfully been operating a loans portfolio to housing associations and local business regeneration loans since 2009.

It added: “This is a secured loan portfolio and none of the loans have ever defaulted or been close to default.

“This programme has promoted house building and regeneration and is well respected across the public and private sector. All the loans have a high loan to value security ratios.”