Highways revenue budgets are being targeted by local council leaders, in order to keep council tax increases to a minimum, while facing declining income and rising costs.
The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham is cutting council tax by 3% for the third year running, made possible by a £12M ‘cut in red tape’, including £3M in efficiency savings for environmental services.
Hammersmith & Fulham will shave £400,000 from its highways service budget to ‘make staff reductions and service reductions, and introduce new trading arrangements’ and delete vacant posts. The borough is also assuming that it will generate an extra £500,000 from fixed-penalty notices on utilities and from the introduction of fees for applying for permits under the London permit scheme, and will also bring in additional penalty charge income.
Surrey Council Council, faced with a £1.4M increase in landfill tax and an additional electricity cost for streetlights of £1.2M but only a 1.75% increase in grant, is to cut its highways maintenance budget. Surrey is to cut the budget for road repairs by £2.8M, 10% of the current £31M, given, although will allocate extra money to some specific areas for service improvements, including £400,000 to upgrade drainage.
London Borough of Camden is freezing council tax for the second year running, while increasing overall revenue expenditure on environment and culture services by £4M.
However, revenue savings are being made, given falling parking service penalty charge income and increasing electricity and other costs, including by reducing staff numbers in some sections – by 78 in public realm and sustainability, from 537 to 459.
Hampshire County Council hailed its ‘lowest council tax rise in the Southeast’ of 1.9%, paid for by extra prudential borrowing – £12.8M in 2009/10 – and £21M in efficiency savings across services.
However, Hampshire’s executive member for environmental services has sought to maintain spending on highway maintenance in real terms, despite additional costs. Schemes to enhance the urban environment would be deferred to achieve this.
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