Of course Herefordshire Council is no stranger to scandal, with the revelations that the scandal last year about its "children's services" that "utterly failed" to protect children in its care.
As any reader can see, Herefordshire Council are plenty in private debt and paying a very large amount of interest:
https://loboloans.info/council/herefordshire/
They are stealing Public Funds to pay for their own incompetence and criminality. They may be only 210 in the league table of privately indebted councils, but many of the inhabitants will be unaware of the facts. They will be kept unaware, by dishonest councillors and staff, that the private interest payments will continue for another 31 years!