Harrow LBC's idea for putting vending machines in its public buildings has triggered outrage. Paul Osborn responds to its critics If we had offered to hand out cigarettes to schoolchildren, the clamour of moral outrage could hardly have been more strident. Twice in one day, I found myself on the airwaves of local BBC and commercial radio defending the fact that Harrow LBC was – gasp – contemplating putting vending machines in our civic centre, and possibly, in libraries too. The radio station interest had been prompted by an article in the Evening Standard newspaper, in which Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation and a member of the National Obesity Forum, thundered: ‘This is totally inappropriate… If any council wants vending machines, it should put in healthy food only, and while the cash might not come at first, if its persists, it will.' So, there we are. To paraphrase a certain French queen, let them eat tofu. Mr Fry clearly believes that confronted by a vending machine, council employees will simply jettison common sense and indulge in a Roman orgy of crisps, sweets and tooth-rotting fizzy drinks. Why, then, are we contemplating putting vending machines in our building? The idea emerged from consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers after we asked it to look at ways the council could increase its revenue across the board. For those unfamiliar with our financial plight, Harrow LBC is pushing through, this year alone, a £9m savings package to balance our books. We concluded that a few vending machines could make the council £25,000 a year in extra revenue. Hardly a windfall, but in this climate, every little helps. And presumably, the media commentators would be the first to condemn us if we frittered £25,000 on some ‘loony' council project. The suggestion of putting vending machines in libraries provoked particular interest. What if a buyer scrunched a bag of crisps, fracturing the concentration of a reader nearby? Perhaps Harrow would then be accused of bringing the curtain down on a golden age of literacy. Let me assure users of the service that it is far from certain we'll put these machines in libraries – and crisps won't be on the menu if we do. I could easily rebut claims that Harrow LBC is soft on health by listing all sorts of things we do to promote wellbeing – from employing a nutritionist to advise schools on menus and funding after-school exercise classes to opening a new, £36m leisure complex. But what irritates me, particularly, is the suggestion that a vending machine is a malign presence. Vending machines are perfectly capable of stocking healthy fare as well as the traditional crisps, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks which send health lobbyists into paroxysms. Incidentally, the companies which run these services are themselves acutely conscious of changing trends towards low-calorie and healthy food, and are tailoring their offering accordingly. After all, they'd lose money if they didn't following the changing tastes of the market. For example, one of the UK's largest suppliers of vending machines offers fruit, yoghurt, prepared salad bowls and ‘smoothies' from its dispensers – hardly the prelude for a tidal wave of unsaturated fat to descend upon our employees. Another promotes a range of items guaranteed to have less than 6g of fat, less than 250 mg of sodium, or less than 5g of added sugar when it comes to cold drinks. One of the radio station interviewers told me: ‘We all know people are going to buy sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks... not the healthy stuff!' Undoubtedly, some will. But the same Harrow LBC employee or visitor who fancies a sugar rush or a bag of salt‘n'vinegar can readily walk to any one of a number of shops nearby and buy the same. So, returning to that French queen again: ‘Let them eat cake – if that's what they want.' At a time when councils are under the cosh for everything, from bin fascism to spying, surely it's refreshing that Harrow treats its staff as informed adults. It's called freedom of choice. n Cllr Paul Osborn is portfolio holder for performance, communication and corporate services at Harrow LBC
