The care services for adults and children, the cost of living crisis, river pollution and its consequences, roads and the state of Hereford’s athletics track all featured in council budget discussions on Friday as councillors spoke of the difficult decisions needed to keep council services operating as they reluctantly approved a 4.99% uplift in council tax.
Decisions taken in the atrium of Plough Lane on Friday include maintaining a 100% discount on council tax for hard up households and providing a further £1.7m targeted to support people in financial difficulties. Approval was also given to a new flexibility to charge double council tax on second homes and empty properties.
Opposition groups provided no alternative budget proposals and made no suggestions for altering or improving the £380m budget for 2023-24, and their members repeatedly demonstrated their lack of understanding of the council’s finances through the comments made during the four hour debate.
Opposition members clearly felt themselves on firmer ground arguing over how a small amount of additional funding through the Rural Services Grant should best be used and the debate on this 0.2% of the overall budget consumed close to a third of the meeting.
Pollution from agriculture and water companies dumping sewage is having a devastating effect on the River Wye. Herefordshire’s home-grown building industry in the north of the county has been at a standstill for 40 months as a consequence of the pollution crisis, and the county loses £12m every month the ban on development continues.
Independents and Greens proposed to use the funding windfall to accelerate ongoing work to address the pollution and lift the moratorium on development in the River Lugg catchment before it extends to cover the entire Wye catchment – which covers more than 90% of the county area.
Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Bob Matthews’ breakaway Indies wanted the money spent on potholes in rural roads. John Harrington, cabinet member for Transport, argued that the money was maybe sufficient to resurface a couple of rural roads and suggested Conservatives would do better to lobby their local MPs and government in Westminster to properly fund all councils to maintain the road network.
‘The government is failing all local authorities, but particularly rural ones like Herefordshire, by cutting the historical grant needed to maintain over 2,000 miles of rural road network. Just like it is failing in its duties to prevent the ruin of our river systems, rivers which are the remit of a chronically underfunded Environment Agency’ said Cllr Harrington. ‘Our Highways network is £315 million behind in terms of optimal maintenance after 13 years of austerity’. Speaking after the meeting Cllr. Harrington, Leader of the Independents for Herefordshire, noted that Conservative-controlled Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Shropshire Councils were all proposing Council Tax rises of 4.99% and wondered why Herefordshire Conservatives proposed a 0% increase without any explanation of how to manage record inflation and cuts from central government. ‘I like my fellow Cllrs across the room but I wouldn’t vote them in on their business plan – they have not been paying enough attention to basic economics and to holding our MPs to account for voting to cut hundreds of millions from Herefordshire Council’s budgets over the last decade plus’, he said.
Cllr. Harrington also expressed disappointment at the decision by Cllr Matthews not to back the administration’s proposal to support the county’s building sector by adding £480k to the Phosphate Commission plan, intended to force government, legally if necessary, to back the Council’s plans to save the Wye and Lugg. ‘I thought Cllr. Matthews was the champion for local businesses, that is what he always tells us, his vote yesterday demonstrates he doesn’t understand the urgency of this need, I can no longer take him at his word.’
‘The pollution of our rivers is a tragedy that must be reversed immediately,’ said Liz Harvey as she delivered the budget, urging councillors to support additional investment in the work of the Phosphate Commission to deliver river restoration and to regulate manure use and sewage release.
‘The health of our rivers and waterways is absolutely vital to our economy and our very existence in this county,’ said cabinet member for Economy and Environment Ellie Chowns. ‘We have to take a strategic approach to spending this money.’ The Big Economic Plan for Herefordshire, developed since the council declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency, relies on the waterways of Herefordshire being restored to bring the county’s economy back to life, supporting vital home-grown industries, including tourism, agriculture and hospitality that rely on the River Wye.
Speaking on the investment required for the Children’s Services budget, Cllr Chowns said: ‘We need to make this a county that is good for children to grow up in. It is essential we increase expenditure on Children’s Services to address the under-investment and damaging service cuts imposed by previous administrations.’
Whilst agreeing that road conditions were a key concern for residents, councillors felt wider and more immediate benefit could be achieved by allocating an additional £200k from the Rural Services Grant to fund footbridges, styles and gates to help parish footpath groups to improve rural rights of way.
Jim Kenyon made a plea for funds to repair the dire state of the Hereford athletics track, run by Halo. There was support in the room for the reinstatement of the running track but councillors questioned why Halo had not undertaken the maintenance work required under their lease which has allowed the track to fall into disrepair. Gemma Davies, cabinet member for property and contracts, gave an assurance that the council was working with local athletics interests and Halo to find a way forward.
In summing up the debate Liz Harvey, cabinet member for finance, commented: ‘This is not a budget we hoped to be presenting. However, we now have the worst economic and cost of living crisis in a generation alongside spiralling food and fuel costs. We must find a way to deliver statutory services whilst targeting financial support to hard hit households.
‘This budget includes more than £14m of planned savings and efficiencies across a range of council activities and yet we have made sure we remain able to make important investments in our community infrastructure, our transport network, our schools, our economy, our river and our care services.’
‘Council tax remains the fairest way to raise income locally as it ensures that the better off pay a greater proportion of the cost of the services which the least well off rely upon.’