It is now a month since the Liberal Democrats took over the running of Wokingham Borough Council with the support of the Wokingham Borough Partnership of Liberal Democrat, Labour, and Independent councillors.
The Lib Dems were put in charge at the annual council meeting on Thursday, May 19.
During this month we have faced some serious challenges. We were expecting there to be some, but not as serious as they have been.
At 9am on the day after we were put in charge of the council, we were advised of several severe budget pressures which had built up since the last few months of 2021.
We were disappointed to discover that the Conservatives, who ran the council until May 19, had not budgeted for some important – and very predicable – areas of demand for new money.
The first problem for us to address was the shortfall in the bus service budget.
Eighteen services were threatened with cancellation from September, because the Conservative government was withdrawing the Covid support grant. This was being done before the bus services had recovered to their pre-covid levels. The services still haven’t done this.
Supporting these buses services would cost the council over £1 million.
Amazingly, the Conservatives had made no budget provision to support these services.
It’s not clear what they intended to do but without financial support the services would have had to be cut.
We have been working hard with officers and the bus companies since May 20, to find inventive solutions to this massive problem. The result of this hard work should mean that these services can be continued to the end of March 2023.
Thereafter we will look to budget for them properly so the services can be maintained for our residents and visitors.
Unfortunately, we can’t save the park & ride service at Thames Valley Park. This was cancelled before the Conservatives left office. But we are now looking to see what service can be provided there.
In the meantime, an alternative park and ride service for Royal Berkshire Hospital staff has been arranged as a trial from the site.
One of the focuses of the Liberal Democrat administration will be to support bus services wherever possible. Not everyone can afford to run a car, especially with the huge increases in fuel costs over the last year or so.
We also need to provide alternatives to car use to help reduce carbon emissions. A significant help towards reducing carbon emissions in the borough is to retain and grow our bus services, not cut them/
We will continue to work to do this. Hopefully there will be support from government to do this.
Cllr Clive Jones is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council
