Wokingham Borough’s Liberal Democrat have set their Budget for another year, and it is yet more dither and delay.
Taxes are up, fees and charges are up and yet services are being slashed.
This is not how it should be. If you are paying more, you should get value for money from your Council.
Money is wasted, assets are under-utilised and opportunities are being squandered. And crucially, the wishes of our residents, the people who have to live with the impact of the decisions of this administration, are regularly ignored.
Numerous petitions have resulted in obfuscation or have simply been ignored altogether, including on car parking charges, California Crossroads, development at Hall Farm, keeping weekly bin collections (and the latter branded spurious.) When 2,000 residents signed a petition against the removal of public litter bins, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader called the text of a supporting motion “annoying”.
At the Council meeting I pointed to the £5.5 million California Crossroads as a symbol of their incompetence – a scheme deemed unsafe by a road safety audit recommendations from which were ignored. I also criticised their Local Plan, particularly the Hall Farm development, which I argued would worsen traffic and demonstrated their hypocrisy in opposing developments before elections only to approve them later.
The Liberal Democrats talk about what they are going to do, but actual delivery doesn’t match their commitments and their promises to deliver, we are simply seeing lots of paperwork but little concrete improvements.
The Lib Dems promised to be competent and compassionate. Failing to deliver Bohunt Sixth Form, allowing building costs to spiral and causing uncertainty for teacher and teenagers, is not competent or compassionate. Nor is it competent or compassionate to tell businesses it is “too easy to blame Wokingham Borough Council” for a fall in shoppers when the Council has doubled parking charges and funded free Christmas bus travel to take shoppers out of the Borough.
We have deep concerns about this budget. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Liberal Democrat mismanagement of the Council’s finances leaves us in a perilous state. And after almost three years in power, the administration can’t keep pointing the finger at everyone else.
In previous years, the Liberal Democrats have repeatedly promised to ensure the health of reserves, funds set aside to cover unexpected expenses, but they only talk about the General Fund Reserve. They say less about other pockets of reserves they are habitually plundering.
Last year the Liberal Democrats took £4 million out of the reserves to plug gaps.
In this Budget, the administration has had to take £3 million out of reserves again to balance the general fund revenue account. This does not make for sustainable finances.
Any household dipping into their savings account to cover day-to-day spending would recognise the issue.
The administration should be producing long-term budgets that look at the fundamentals of spending across the authority, and ensure that every penny is justified and is being spent efficiently. But instead, we are once again faced with the Liberal Democrats’ answer to everything: charge people more for services and raid the piggy bank to fill gaps.
After less than 3 years in power, this Liberal Democrat administration is out of touch and out of ideas.
