SECRET MEETING FOR TOUR CASH

CRUMBRIA: 8.7.2026

CRUMBRIA’s new Mayor’s office looks like its about to commit more cash to next year’s Tour de France.

The Cumbria Combined Authority — our newest bureaucracy and gravy train — won’t get a Mayor until next May.

But that hasn’t stop the Mayor’s office adopting the council trick of spending public money in private.

High-ranking Labour and Lib Dem councillors from Crumberland and Wokemoreland slip behind closed doors on July 17 for a pow-wow in Penrith.

They’ll decide whether to “underwrite certain costs” relating to the Tour de France which is coming to Cumbria next summer.

Officially, the new Mayor’s office — which still doesn’t have, er, a Mayor — has agreed to underwrite about £2.7m for the Grand Départ.

But the local media has already reported that it will lump £4m towards the crowd-puller.

So could this upcoming private meeting relate to the £1.3m gap?

Don’t ask us. You’re not allowed to know.

The press and public will be locked out of the discussion.

We don’t see why Crumbria’s contribution has to be decided in secret.

As ever, the excuse being made is that the topic is “commercially sensitive”.

That’s long been a tactic to keep the public in the dark.

Only a complete village idiot would downplay the multi-million pound return of having the Grand Départ whizzing through Carlisle, Keswick and the South Lakes.

Expect any potholes on the route to be magically fixed before the world’s greatest cyclists encounter Crumbria’s road network.

And can we rule out our newly arrived Mayor rushing in a new Tourism Tax before the event to cash in on thousands of cycling spectators seeking digs?

Last year, nearly 60% of Cumbrians told the Government they didn’t want an elected Mayor.

Crumberland & Wokemoreland councils pressed ahead anyway.

Welcome to devolution.

Where local people allegedly have more say over local decisions!

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