Tough time trying to balance the books

Published:
00:00 March 11, 2022

It’s that time of year again when the budget is set for the next fiscal year. With the pressure on everyone’s finances, it would be nice to say that we are not proposing a council tax increase this year.

Unfortunately, like everyone else, we are suffering from rising costs, rising energy bills, rising fuel bills for our waste and recycling teams, rising salaries, etc. . With inflation over 5%, it is a challenge to balance the books.

Next year North Devon Council will also face reduced income from various government schemes, such as the New Homes Bonus and as a result it is expected that we will have a budget shortfall of £2,000,000 at during the year 23/24.

That said, we are not massively increasing our demand on taxpayers, as our share will increase by just under 10p per week for D-band properties (£5 for the year). Unfortunately, that’s not all, because the county council, the police and the fire brigade also pay their share of council tax.

Therefore, we will continue to work with our vulnerable customers to ensure that they have the maximum help and support to help them through these difficult months ahead, when they too face an increased cost of the life.

As a Council, we are increasing most fees and charges by approximately 2%, which is well below the increase in inflation. In a few cases we have increased prices slightly, such as for garden waste, to ensure that the cost of providing this service is almost covered and, at the same time, we still provide the service at one of the lowest rates. lower Devon. .

Currently the County Council taxpayer subsidizes our garden waste collection and this is unfair to those who do not use the service. This includes, for example, those who live in apartments or have no garden and many of them are among the least able to pay higher bills in our community.

We have not proposed to surcharge our city center car parks, even though it has been several years since they have been increased. Similarly, we have not increased the Barnstaple Pannier Market fees. Indeed, we realize that businesses in the center of our cities have struggled due to the pandemic and we wish them well and thrive.

Even in these difficult times, we try to be much more proactive in delivering projects and programs for the benefit of the residents of North Devon than the Council has been for many years.

For example, we are investing to help revitalize Barnstaple through the Future High Street project, the purchase of Green Lanes shopping center and the construction of a new leisure centre, and in Ilfracombe we are building the watersports centre.

The number of staff employed by the Council has decreased by almost 20% since 2010 and the ability to bid for funding and carry out regeneration projects has become extremely strained.

This budget marks a change in direction for the Council and a change in mindset, reflecting the suggestions of the Local Government Peer Review. While this independent review praised North Devon Council for the positive progress that has been made since the last district elections, it made reference to the need to increase our capacity.

This is really important for many reasons, including the fact that we have to bid for funding for future projects. Growing the organization in a strategic and balanced way gives us a chance to maintain and improve current services, meet our business priorities, bring more revenue to the authority to invest in other programs and also to close our medium-term budget gap projections.

We have exciting projects in the pipeline and we want them to succeed in making a difference as we strive to be a progressive, ambitious and forward-looking Council.