It looks like we are all heading for a very cold winter involving rocketing inflation and strikes, because energy prices and inflation is rising above affordable levels.
Unfortunately, these price increases that are affecting you as individuals is also affecting Wokingham Borough Council.
We have no magic bucket of spare cash lying around and when the 2022-23 budget was set by the previous administration earlier in the year, no-one had fully appreciated the events that have contributed to the rapid rise in costs and how that might the affect all of us.
We started in May with a change of political control and inheriting a budget with underfunded reserves, underfunded projects, and overambitious targets.
Examples of this include no funding for the bags used to line the food waste caddies of our residents.
We also found that we needed to find £1.3m of extra funding for the Winnersh Park & Ride car park to cover a problem with the project that was known about last October, but again, no provision was included for it in this year’s budget.
The budget also expected the habits of our residents to return to pre-covid levels and the income targets were set at that level.
Consequentially, we are predicted to have a £780,000 shortfall on the Car Parking income. The same problem is also affecting lots of areas, such as our leisure facilities, football pitches and event field rentals.
We were also not expecting to have a more than £500,000 overspend on school transport, which seems to be due to an inherited situation of poor planning of school placements and having to shoehorn children into far-flung schools around the Borough … and this is just the start of what looks likely to be a long list of problems we have found.
I have no idea of how the previous administration was expecting to pay for all this and those that are still left on the council are not forthcoming with ideas.
We need this income to keep our council’s services running, such as fixing our roads, emptying our bins and providing support to those in the most need.
So, what is the plan to fix this?
Well, we have some longer-term plans to increase our incomes in different ways.
One example is building a Solar farm which will decrease our energy needs from external suppliers and allow us to sell cheaper energy.
We are also building new schools and creating new school places nearer where our residents live so that our children don’t have to travel as far.
In the shorter term we are working with our Council officers to adjust the Council to more efficient working practices. Still, we will need to batten down the hatches and there will no doubt be some changes.
We may not like the decisions we will face, but it does feel like we are beginning to make headway in trying to turn around what feel like an Aircraft Carrier.
However, I am confident that will get there.
Cllr Imogen Shepherd-DuBey is the executive member for finance and Lib Dem ward member for Emmbrook
Editor’s note: This article was written before the national period of mourning started
