1 March 2017
Unlike the County Council, the City Council’s finances are in a relatively strong position. Over £160,000 has been put into balances and £500,000 has been set aside for a rather vaguely defined “economic development reserve”.
Given this, Green group members are shocked by some of the proposals in Labour’s budget:
Street Cleaning
The Labour budget reduces spending on street cleaning by £80,000. This has been done by changing workers' contracts and by reducing overall hours by 112 per week. Officers claim that the new contracts will result in a more efficient service - but we find it difficult to see how losing that many hours will not reduce the cleanliness of our streets. Given that Labour is putting aside £500,000,we would have thought that they should have taken advantage of any efficiencies in street cleaning contracts to improve the overall service - that is, get more done for the same money. Currently 1422 hours are worked per week. This will be reduced to 1310 hours in 2017/18.
The Green group will be seeking to restore some of these hours using money put into council balances. The group believes that providing a clean and healthy environment is a good way to boost jobs and tourism.
Marsh Community Centre
A complete cut of youth work money to the Marsh Community Centre. This sum of only just over £13,000 is of immeasurable value to give young people on the Marsh some direction and a decent start in life.
The Green Group will be seeking to restore this money for a year whilst a council committee conducts a review into spending on the voluntary sector. The committee met for the first time in February.
Economic Development Reserve
Labour proposes that the spending on the £500,000 economic development reserve will be decided by officers and so will not be subject to scrutiny by cabinet and the rest of the council.
The Green group wants to see this money properly scrutinised and will be proposing this at Full Council.
Property Review
The Labour group have been avoiding a ‘property review’ for many years. It is well known that taxpayers are having to pay large amounts of extra money because the Council’s buildings are not fully occupied. In particular, operating two Town Halls is very expensive – the Green group believes that the City Council should be making better use of Morecambe Town Hall to raise revenue for the Council.
The Green group will be pushing for this property review to be completed in the 2017/18 financial year.
Salt Ayre
The Green Group fully supports the improvements to facilities at Salt Ayre. Last March, many green councillors wanted another month before supporting £5m of investment into Salt Ayre – because they wanted more information on the financial projections for the initiative.
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