DESPITE ITS FINANCIAL PRUDENCE, Castle Point Borough Council (CPBC) members are faced with the herculean task of having to reduce their expenditure by some 30 per cent over the next two years. Government funding will be reduced by 17.6 per cent from April next year – and 12.1 per cent the year after.
Castle Point Borough Council Leader Pam Challis announced the news to shocked members at the Full Council meeting held on Tuesday evening.
The cuts are much more than anticipated. This year CPBC received £6.65 million as its formula grant from government, crystallising the two reductions as £1.17 million next year and a further £663,000 the year after.
‘It is important that we all work together,’ Pam said, as she concluded her announcement.
The news completely overshadowed Colin Letchford’s earlier beating of his beach pool drum, obviously designed to provoke Tory embarrassment and provide an opening for his Canvey Island Independent Party political chums, asking Cabinet: ‘Was the council negligent in not having a safety assessment of the new pool carried out by industry experts when the cabinet members realised the problem of design and construction in the summer of 2008?’
As Council Leader, Pam Challis was forced to point-out Letchford’s apparent inability to properly represent the facts in his closed and leading question.
It was the East of England Development Agency (in which Canvey Island Town Council was a partner) that had carried out the work and had refused to have the project led locally by CPBC.
It remains to be seen if Colin will now pursue his personal windmill in the proper chamber.
Later on, Letchford’s name would again crop-up as Council was formally advised that his Referendum for an Elected Mayor had been deemed invalid. The petition only had 582 valid signatures.
Full Council heard a report from Castle Point Youth Council on its latest achievements, and agreed to implement a Dog Control Order (setting a maximum fine for not clearing-up faeces at £80). And Ray Howard successfully passed a motion to ask Essex County Council (ECC) to reconsider its decision to abandon Essex’ Warning Sirens and provide the ability for CPBC, and others, to takeover their running.
Ray had looked into the matter of maintenance costs for these assets and found that a present budget of around £16,000 would be sufficient for all of Essex. However, he was not in a position to assess how much it would cost to replace them.
Neville Watson was the only member to speak-out against Ray Howard’s proposal – although, in typical Neville-speak, he said he supported the motion. Watson was arguing that ECC had billions in its coffers and could therefore afford to carry on with its duty of providing sirens throughout the County. And he also had harsh words for the ECC Cabinet member whom had ‘taken this decision on her own.’
Bill Dick was forced to point-out that the decision had not been taken by the Cabinet member at all – she was simply doing what she had been told to do by DEFRA and the Chief Fire Officer who had both concluded that sirens were no longer needed. And Ray was forced to point-out that ECC only had around £35 million of reserves, which was insignificant when one considered the number of people employed and its annual departmental spending.
Ray also alluded to the fact that ECC had its own problems where government funding was concerned. In a recent press release, that Council announced that its grant would be cut by 10%, which ‘increased our budget gap in 2011/12 by a further £18M - from £108m to £126m. Essex has suffered a £15.7M reduction in 2011/12 to contribute towards other authorities under the Government’s complex funding arrangements.’
It is not clear if these statements took Neville by surprise and, somehow put him off balance; but, the fact is, he did not keep his promise to the Echo and its readers.
Neville did not raise the issue of the Castle Point Car Scheme’s funding. Nor did he suggest that members should take a cut in their allowances to provide that financially incompetent entity with further public funds.
But then: talk is cheap – and Christmas is always expensive, huh Neville?..
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