World AIDS Day

To mark World Aids Day Bedford Corn Exchange has been lit red this evening.

Local Plan to be adopted

Mayor Dave Hodgson has expressed his delight that the Bedford Borough Local Plan 2030 can now be adopted following the Inspectors report.

Keeping Bedford Borough Moving this Winter

Council Funding Gap: The Scale of the Challenge

I have written before about the financial challenge facing Bedford Borough Council, but as consultation begins on the first set of proposals to modernise Council services and make them more cost-effective, it is worth considering the figures involved in order to really grasp the full scale of that challenge. Bedford Borough Council has to save £36 million over four years in order to balance the books. That's an awful lot of money by any reckoning, but the fact that it represents over a quarter of the Council's current total net budget of £129 million brings the size of the task ahead into even greater focus (the bar chart on the right provides a graphical illustration). There is no escaping this; the Council is legally required to deliver a balanced budget, and cannot make a policy decision not to make all the savings, for example. What we can do, however, is to work with all parties on the Council, with staff and crucially with residents to make sure the savings are made carefully and in the fairest way poss

Bedford Borough Council continues its crackdown on fly-tippers

A fly-tipper has been fined for illegally dumping a sofa in Faraday Square, Bedford. The person responsible was identified by the Council's Environmental Crime Team from a CCTV camera deployed to the area and despite the fly-tipping happening at night were still able to identify the offender and issue them a Fixed Penalty Notice of £400.

New figures show 2.3 million EU citizens without Settled Status

The latest EU Settlement Scheme Statistics, published toward the end of last year by the Home Office, show more than 140,000 EU citizens applied to live and work in the UK after Brexit in November compared to more than half a million submitted in October.