THE budget that councillors will be asked to vote on this evening has not impressed the Conservatives.
Its group leader, Cllr Pauline Jorgensen, feels it rides roughshod over some of the arguments the Lib Dem group have made over increasing car parking fees and axing bags for food waste caddies.
And with one eye on the 4.99% increase in the borough’s share of council tax, she said: “This Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition budget forces higher taxes, higher fees, and higher charges on residents for worse services.”
Wokingham Today understands that her party will make an alternative budget proposal, outlining what it would do differently if it was still making decisions.
The Conservatives lost control of the council last May, following the local elections. No one party has a majority, but the Lib Dems, Labour and two independents formed the Wokingham Borough partnership.
The ruling Lib Dem group worked to the budget they inherited, so this is the first time that councillors have been able to stamp their mark on the financial envelope.
Cllr Jorgensen said the figures showed some of the Lib Dems’ policies didn’t add up.
“We now have it confirmed that the doubling of car parking is unnecessary and nonsensical,” she said.
“While the Budget says the increase in parking charges will raise £500,000, it also says that they expect a drop in people using the car parks because of the shock of these massive increases costing £350,000.
“So, in fact they will only raise £150,000, whilst doing severe damage to our town centres.”
On motoring, she said: “There are real terms cuts in road maintenance but millions being spent on new cycleways, or maybe mostly just more analysis and consultation documents.
“We should be providing people with good options to cycle and walk to work and school, if they want to and are able to, but there needs to be some balance, we need to spend more on road repairs not less.”
And plans to shake up refuse collections also received a thumbs down.
“The move to bi-weekly waste collection will save no money for many years, if ever, and the business case required, and promised since the Autumn, to assess the change is still non-existent,” she said.
“This is a budget driven by ideology not necessity – and certainly not sense.”
