Saving £36 Million Over Four Years - Have your Say on Council's Proposals

Last week my latest monthly column for the Times and Citizen Newspaper looked at the savings proposals which were approved for consultation by the all-party Executive last week. Consultation will begin next week, and will be open until late November, so please do have a look at the proposals and give your views. As I said in my column, it is only by working together during these tought times that we can ensure we are making the best decisions for our Borough, now and in the future. Here's the article in full, including a link to the section of the Council's website where you will be able to find out more about the proposals and how to take part in the consultation:

"The last two Times & Citizen front pages have reported on proposals amongst those put forward as the council seeks to save £36million over the next four years.

To put that figure in context, the council's current total net budget is £129million.

There is no hiding from this funding gap, which is caused by the reduction in government funding and other factors including inflation. However, while we do not have a choice over the amount we save, there are obviously key decisions to be made over how we save it.

All parties on the council are working together on this, which is very important during these unprecedented, extremely tough times. The proposals do not include a number of the measures seen commonly elsewhere, such as library or children's centre closures, while we continue to subsidise rural bus services, for example.

However, clearly there are lots of difficult decisions to be taken in order to save the required £36million, and it is vital that residents are able to have their say on the fairest way to achieve this. A number of proposals have already been out to consultation, and consultation on the rest will launch this month. Details will be available at www.bedford.gov.uk/budget2012

Included amongst those proposals is one relating to changes to household waste collections, which was the subject of the first of those front pages. This proposal includes enabling households to put food waste in their green bin.

With the black and orange bin collected one week and the green bin the next, it would therefore retain weekly collection of smelly food waste, while saving over £350,000 a year.

The other front page story was the proposed closure of the Bunyan Centre, which will lose the £438,000 contribution from the Bedford Academy once the school has its own sports facilities built. To add this to the existing council subsidy of £338,000 is not sustainable.

These two proposals are the ones that have grabbed the headlines, but I encourage everyone to take the time to look through the full list and give your views as we work to ensure the right decisions for our borough are taken during these extremely difficult times."