5:05pm Friday 7th March 2008
By Citizen reporter
Leading councillors in South Ribble have delivered their promise to keep the borough council's tax rise lower than or equal to inflation.
On Wednesday South Ribble Borough Council agreed a 3.8 per cent rise on its proportion of the council tax.
The current rate of inflation stands at 4.1 per cent.
This means the average Band D homeowner in South Ribble will need to pay an extra 14p a week, or £3.79 in total for services including waste collection and recycling, planning, sports and leisure, building control, street cleansing, community safety, benefits, environmental health, local activities and the upkeep of parks and open spaces.
The Government requires councils to present their council tax figures based on a Band D property, but as most homes in South Ribble fall within Bands A to C, the majority of local people can expect to pay less than 14p extra per week for the borough council's services.
South Ribble is set to receive the fourth lowest amount of Government grant settlement in Lancashire this year (£7.2m).
This figure represents a low increase of 1.5 per cent on last year's grant and equates to a real terms loss, according to council bosses, because it doesn't come close to meeting the cost of inflation, they claim.
Coupled with that, council bosses said the Government has failed to provide enough cash to deliver its new free bus travel scheme for local pensioners, which has forced the authority to put other projects on hold to find the extra £71,000 it's estimated will be needed to meet the shortfall, it is claimed.
Council chiefs also claim a change to the way the Government allocates its cash has left a gap of £21,000 in community safety funding that the authority has been required to find from elsewhere.
The council's budget, however, allocates extra cash to cleansing, community safety and providing facilities for young people - all issues local people have identified as priorities, it is claimed.
Key projects will include ploughing an extra £140,000 into street cleaning, litter picking and dealing with graffiti, fly posting and fly tipping; developing brand new playgrounds in Penwortham, Higher Walton and Much Hoole; further improving facilities at Withy Grove Park and spending cash on regeneration projects in Leyland town centre.
The council has, however, been forced to reconsider introducing a pilot kitchen waste collection scheme and to rethink the amount of grant funding it can offer to local groups.
Councillor Colin Clark, cabinet member with responsibility for Finance and Resources, said: "The Government has dealt us a shocking blow this year with the disgraceful amount of grant settlement it has promised for South Ribble and consequently we have had some difficult decisions to make over this year's budget.
"But I am glad to say that despite all of this we have managed to keep our tax rise below inflation to just 14p a week or less for the vast majority of local people.
"In the last year this council has been awarded top marks for the way it manages its resources and I am proud to say that our budget continues this theme."
South Ribble keeps around 13 pence in every pound it collects.
The rest goes to Lancashire County Council (73p), the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority (4p), the Police Authority (9p) and Town and Parish Councils where they exist.
Each of these authorities has agreed its own budget during recent weeks.
Lancashire County Council needs Band D homeowners to pay an extra 59p a week; the Lancashire Police Authority needs an extra 19p a week and the Combined Lancashire Fire Authority has agreed a weekly rise of 5p to pay for its services.
When added to the extra 14p a week required by South Ribble Borough Council, this takes the total weekly increase for Band D homeowners to 97p (excluding town and parish councils).
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