The Labour Government has withdrawn over £43m from Wokingham Borough Council over the next 3 years. By increasing the share they are taking from Business Rates now taking a whopping 94% of them – we have £43m less than we planned for. That is £43m less for grass cutting, road repairs and the things that our residents need. Businesses expect the Council to be keeping up the roads and services to support their businesses, but now Wokingham Borough Council is left with only just about enough money to collect the business rates and pass it to central government, with not much left for Council services.
That means we are more reliant on Council Tax and what we can glean from fees and charges, such as planning applications, car parking and library fines. Most of these fees and charges are ring fenced, such as car parking fees have to be spent on maintaining the car parks or the roads leading to them. Likewise, parking ticket fines are limited to maintaining the service.
This also means that our invest to save and revenue generating projects are vital to our Council’s long term survival – one of these is the Barkham Solar Farm. I think everyone can see that the prices for fossil fuels are only going in one direction and the quicker we can move the Council away from fossil fuel dependency, the better. The project will used borrowed money to build a solar farm on land that the council owns. When it is built it will provide electricity to the Council and will be open to nearby organisations who also want to connect in and receive electricity at a cheaper rate and, of course, we also expect to supply electricity back to the national grid.
When fully operational the Barkham Solar Farm is expected to generate an income in excess of £1m per year, over its 40 year life – which is the goal. Even if you are not committed to tackling Climate Change, you have to agree that there good financial reasons for proceeding with this project as soon as possible and there would be enough latitude to tackle most bumps in the road if the plan has to be tweaked.
The leader of the Council, Cllr Stephen Conway and I have met with senior managers of the companies involved in connecting the Solar Farm to the grid and we are comfortable that they will be able to provide us with the initial connection and will take our electricity, when we are ready. It is projects like this, with a little bit of ambition and drive, that will give this Council more financial independence, in the long run.
The previous administration spent our money on hight profile projects, such as Wokingham Town Centre regeneration – it is nice, but they neglected care homes for our elderly and failed to build special schools for children with additional needs. I am pleased to say that we have invested in schools, care homes and children’s hubs, ensuring that all our residents across the Borough can access these services.
Cllr Imogen Shepherd-Dubey, Executive Councillor for Finance & Governance
