By Cllr Clive Jones
This week we have heard from the Leaders of two of the largest County Councils in the country, Kent and Hampshire. Both currently controlled by the Conservatives.
Their Leaders said that whilst they recognised a very difficult national picture, they were calling on the Prime Minister to fund councils properly.
These leaders clearly recognise that that the government is facing a black hole of £60 billion in its finances, including £30 billion that can directly be laid at the door of Liz Truss’s disastrous budget just a few weeks ago.
Kent and Hampshire County Councils could face drastic cuts to services, but this would not be enough to patch up the massive holes in their budgets.
Both leaders said they faced budget deficits in coming years of a scale never seen before.
If ministers don’t step in with immediate emergency help for local councils, and a new long-term proper funding plan, then it’s likely these two councils will join the list of local authorities going bust.
We are doing all we can to ensure that Wokingham does not go bust even though we are, and have been for more than eight years, the lowest funded unitary local council in the country.
Wokingham has been starved of cash by the Conservative government for far too long.
In Wokingham, we have the added pressures of being left with a huge budget shortfall of £2.2m by the Conservatives when they left power in May.
They also didn’t budget properly leaving the Winnersh Park & Ride scheme with a shortfall of £1.3m and no funding for 18 bus services after October 2022.
The government’s position has been made all the more difficult by the disastrous mini-budget a few weeks ago from Liz Truss and Kwazi Kwarteng which added to the black hole in the country’s finances, so we now have a deficit of £60 billion.
I am sure we all remember the only Conservative MP willing to defend Liz Truss and Mr Kwarteng was Wokingham’s current MP, John Redwood.
It will be interesting to see what he thinks of today’s budget (17th November 2022).
He certainly made his views clear about the Prime Minister a few months ago when he rubbished Rishi Sunak almost daily on his Twitter account.
Mr Redwood and his colleagues from the right wing of the Conservative party are unlikely to support the prime minister now.
I sincerely hope that the government will find more money for local councils in today’s budget.
Especially more money for Wokingham, which receives around £24m less than other similar unitary councils every year. That is £24m that we are unable to spend on local services such as road repairs, schools and adult social care for our residents.
Wokingham Borough Council must be properly funded by the government, and we must send this message to the government loudly and clearly.
This extra funding that we need must come from the government.
Cllr Clive Jones is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council and Lib Dem member for Hawkedon ward
