By Cllr Clive Jones
As the Leader of the Wokingham Borough Council, I would like to wish all our residents across the borough a very happy and peaceful Christmas.
The leadership of the borough council has changed this year for the first time in 20 years and the council is now run by a Liberal Democrat administration.
It has been a very challenging six months since the Lib Dem administration replaced the Conservatives. We were able to replace them by forming a Wokingham Borough partnership with the support of the three Labour and two independent councillors.
The Conservatives are now in opposition. Sadly, they have decided that they will be a disruptive opposition rather than constructive one.
Everyone was amazed when they produced a document for their councillors explaining how they would disrupt council meetings.
This is not the way for a responsible opposition to behave.
This attitude from the local Conservatives has disappointed many residents.
Within minutes of taking over the administration in May we were shocked to find that the shortfall in the budget was much greater than we had expected it to be.
We found that there were 18 bus services from across the borough that didn’t have any budget to support them past October. To continue to keep these bus services running we would have to find several hundred thousand pounds very quickly.
There was also a shortfall of £1.3m to finish off the Winnersh park and ride extension. The Conservatives had known about a significant shortfall since October 2021, but they chose to do nothing about it and there was no budget. Something they never want to talk about.
There was insufficient budget for blue waste bags and NO budget for food caddy liners for this year.
For many years the Conservatives have claimed to be the party of sound finances. We have now seen this is not the case locally in Wokingham, and their bubble for financial competence has certainly burst nationally.
No one these days following the disastrous Truss/Kwarteng/Redwood budget would say the Conservatives were the party of sound finance, far from it. Their handling of the economy has been a disaster.
Sir John Redwood was the only Conservative MP who was prepared to spend all day on TV supporting Liz Truss when the rest of us all knew she was finished.
Many people will have had a particularly stressful year and sadly its beginning to look like the first part of 2023 will be no different as inflation continues to rise, interest rates and mortgages remain high and energy cost are now more than twice what they were in 2021.
All these challenges contribute to a cost-of-living crisis that we not seen the like of for 40 years.
Many families in Wokingham are worse off by over £7,000 a year. That is £7,000 that they are unable to spend in the local economy putting the vibrancy of our retailers and shopping centres in the borough at serious risk.
In the middle of February, the new Liberal Democrat administration will be putting forward their budget. We hope that we will be able to put forward a balanced budget.
We are determined that we will maintain as many of our vital services for residents as we can despite the huge economic challenges that we face. We don’t yet know how much money will be given to us by the government to keep our services running after April. Hopefully we will know what we are getting in the next few days. I can hear many of you saying, this is not very organised way for the government to be allocating funds to local authorities, and you are right, it isn’t.
But its how this disorganised government runs itself.
At this time of the year, we should remember and thank those who will be working over the Christmas period to provide the vital services that we all rely on.
All the people who work in our Hospitals, Doctors surgeries, the Police, Fire, and Ambulance services. There are also many other public service employees who will also be on duty providing emergency services to help keep us all safe.
I would like to close by thanking all the Councils staff for their hard work this year and wishing all of you a happy Christmas.
Cllr Clive Jones is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council
