Sorry this is a brief report but that is partly because there is a lot going on. Though most of my time is spent with dealing with potholes and related issues at the moment.
We have the County Budget to get to grips with. I know I asked some people in the CLP to look at it and then didn’t send it to them (sorry) but it is here and I would still welcome input.
It is item 5b on here.
I am grateful to various people from County and other places who have helped me interpret the finance aspects of this as it is a new world to me.
Basically they aren’t going to increase Council Tax by the maximum allowed amount (5%) when the County is currently in a worse state than the City (I am told). There are also quite a lot of savings in the budget which seems to be based on an ”on a wing and a prayer” approach to management- lots of nice ideas that everyone would agree with and have been aiming at (e.g. more foster parents) but no hard suggestions of how this will be achieved. Furthermore, it assumes a 3% pay increase where as NHS staff have just received 3.3% (council pay is determined by national pay bargaining).
The most notable issue is that Via (who fix the roads) is making £1M of efficiency savings (which clearly needs to be reinvested in the road and is probably easier given the huge amount of money they are getting from the Mayor) and increased charges to people using adult social care. We are trying to search for places where money could be saved to offset this as the group don’t want to put Council Tax up more than has been already by Reform (I think this might be achieved by cutting the budget for IT at the county and then also raising CT a tiny amount 0.05% I guestimate. I would welcome feedback on this plan as I know CT is regressive).
Beyond this, James is helping various members of Lady Bay community (including Green Councillors) with a campaign to try to support the number 11 bus, and in the meantime, a local group is running a survey on the possibility of a Town Council in West Bridgford.
I am interested in the latest news from government on communities supporting local energy generation, although I am not sure we have the places we could do this anyway, but it does feel like something the County (and Borough) should be leading on.
The Labour Party in Rushcliffe 