South Ribble Borough Council budget 2023: council tax frozen and big spending plans revealed amid row over borrowing

The move was approved as the authority set its budget for the next 12 months at a meeting that heard households in the district’s most common council tax band - who also choose to pay for green waste collection services - will be handing over less in council charges than they were four years ago.

The man in control of the borough’s purse strings rattled off a litany of past and planned investments in what will be the last budget before the once-in four-year local elections in South Ribble in May.

Cllr Matthew Tomlinson said that it showed the ruling Labour group had fulfilled the pledges it made before voters last went to the polls in the district in 2019, an election which returned a hung council and saw the party do a deal with the Liberal Democrats to ensure it could form a stable administration.

However, the Conservatives - who had run South Ribble for the previous 12 years - raised a red flag over what they warned was “the burden” of debt that the council’s borrowing plans would leave future generations of residents.

The authority will also have to find ways of bridging a near £1.9m budget deficit forecast for 2025/26 - almost half of which will have to be plugged next year - against the backdrop of continued uncertainty over the level and nature of government funding for local authorities in the medium term.

Echoing the concerns of neighbouring Chorley Council - with whom it shares a number of back office services - South Ribble noted in its budget papers that the lack of a clear direction for local government finance made it “almost impossible to prepare a credible financial strategy” beyond next spring.

However, in his budget speech, Cllr Tomlinson - the cabinet member for finance, property and assets - focused on the positives, setting out a raft of projects delivered in recent years in the face of a “once-in-a century pandemic” that could have derailed best laid plans.

“We have totally transformed iconic buildings Hurst Grange Coach House and Worden Hall, completely refurbished ten playgrounds right across the borough, improved miles of footpaths and green links, opened a state of the art football facility in Bamber Bridge, opened the brough’s first credit union [and] provided over 60,000 meals to our most vulnerable children during school holidays - and that has led into us operating a truly trailblazing holiday activity and food programme.

“We have financially supported dozens of community, sport and leisure groups, built the borough’s first council houses for a generation, established Music In The Park, reduced the garden waste charge by 17 percent and we have ended the con trick of outsourcing by bringing our waste collection service and our leisure provision back in house.

“Four years ago, we made a promise to the electorate - we promised that we would strive to produce excellent services, we would do our best to support and empower the most vulnerable and we would do our utmost to minimise the tax burden that they have to bear - and that is precisely what we have done,” Cllr Tomlinson concluded.

He also noted that Band B council tax-payers - of which they are more in South Ribble than any other band - will, if they also opt in for brown bin garden waste collection - be paying £198.63 this year, compared to £200.24 in 2019. The benchmark Band D council tax charge by South Ribble for 2023/24 will remain at £223.24 – a figure which excludes the much larger amount levied by Lancashire County Council, as well as shares reserved for the police, fire service and parish councils.

The council also agreed future investments - including £17.8m for the planned Jubilee Gardens extra care scheme, opposite its Leyland headquarters; a £13m top-up to the £25m the government has provided for the transformation of Leyland under the Town Deal; and £7.3m on improving leisure centres.

Tory opposition group leader Karen Walton welcomed the council tax freeze and continued investments in parks and open spaces to improve “health and wellbeing…for all our residents”.

However, she said that her party feared for the future under the current spending plans.

“What gives us the greatest concern is the growing level of debt that this Labour administration is planning to lead this borough into for the foreseeable future. This administration's spending spree and long-term projection of external debt…will leave our residents with an eye-watering borrowing debt, which will take generations of council tax-payers to pay off - placing a heavy burden on our children and grandchildren.

“[The council] has pushed ahead with loss-making projects such as the McKenzie Arms site in Bamber Bridge, spending over £3m to build 15 social houses, despite outside advice to consider a more affordable and better value for money project…[which would have left] more money to purchase or build more social houses in the borough.

“Almost £18m [is earmarked] for the delivery of the Jubilee Gardens extra care scheme, when other councils in the region have supported and delivered similar projects without the need to provide the funding to build such a project - and we would have delivered the scheme in a similar way, so as not to burden this council with millions of pounds in debt,” Cllr Walton added.

South Ribble Borough Council’s capital investment programme will total £91m between 2022/23 and 2025/26, with more than a third of it - £33.3m - being funded by prudential borrowing; the lion’s share, almost £41m, will come from grants. The share of council revenue that will go on servicing its capital financing is expected to more than double from 2.1 percent this year to 4.9 percent by 2025/26.

Cllr Tomlinson declined to revisit past arguments with the the Tory group, saying that they would just have to “agree to disagree”. He has previously defended the McKenzie Arms housing project as an “exemplar” development that would show other housebuilders what could be achieved.

However, council leader Paul Foster did take issue with the Conservative claims over alternative ways of funding the extra care scheme.

“I really would like the evidence of other extra care schemes that have been built in Lancashire [without] any money,” he quipped, adding that the facilities were largely down to investments by local authorities. He also insisted that such investment in South Ruble was “wholly sustainable”, because the council would receive the rental income from the apartments within Jubilee Gardens.

Meanwhile, acknowledging what is known as the “confidence and supply arrangement” that Labour entered into with Lib Dems - which has seen the latter party offer its support on an issue-by-issue basis - Cllr Foster said that his group had “delivered big time” over the past four years.

Acting Liberal Democrat group leader Angela Turner declared her party’s support for the budget, which, she said, had brought about “yet another council tax freeze without any backdoor taxes for residents or cuts in services”.

She added that the Lib Dems had delivered all of their aims under the arrangement agreed with Labour in 2019, and took the opportunity to highlight them: “Budget scrutiny, town centre [regeneration] plans brought forward, support for apprenticeships, local procurement, building affordable homes, community hubs with delegated budgets and decision-making, a rolling programme of playground refurbishment, a 17.5 percent reduction in green waste charges, scrapping replacement bin charges, more dog bins, electric charging points, a hybrid mayoral car, a fair and equitable appointment of the mayor and no-holds-barred, effective scrutiny of all portfolios.”

As part of the budget, the council has created an £993,000 reserve to protect the authority against the challenge posed by inflation. Its overall reserves as of April 2023 are forecast to stand at £17.3m, although £13.1m are already earmarked for a specific purpose.

The authority says that future opportunities for the savings that will be necessary over the next two years include the continued expansion of the shared service agreement with Chorley, a review of assets to consider the potential for their sale or redevelopment - or the maximisation of the income they generate - and further investment in schemes which yield an income for the council.

ANY OTHER IDEAS?

The Conservative opposition group set out £570,000 of alternative spending proposals which group leader Karen Walton said would help make South Ribble “a safer, healthier and happier place to live”.

“We wish to focus on the very serious issue of speeding traffic in all areas of the borough by providing [speed indicator devices] in all wards…working with parish councils, community hubs, the police and crime commissioner and the Road Safety Partnership to purchase more devices where there is the greatest need.

“We also wish to improve the street scene and the appearance of the whole borough with projects such as renewing old and unsightly bus shelters… replac[ing] and install[ing] litter and dog bins in areas where they have been requested by residents…providing new benches and enhanced seating areas with planters and enhancing all village centres or retail areas of the borough to encourage residents to visit them and to shop local,” Cllr Walton explained.

She also set out a proposal to work with developers to ensure first time buyers were accessing discounts of up to 50 percent via the government’s First Homes scheme and called for a refresh of the near decade-old Central Park project, with improvements to walking and cycling routes and the provision of more natural play areas.

However, Cllr Tomlinson condemned the last-minute nature of the proposals, saying that any of them could potentially have been incorporated into the budget had they been brought forward on the many earlier opportunities there had been to do so.

He also rejected the Tory suggestion that their plans should be funded by taking the money from the council's new inflation reserve, which he said was vital to support the energy-intensive leisure service in the borough.

The Conservative amendment was voted down and the main Labour/Lib Dem budget carried, with the Tories abstaining.

HOW’S THE MONEY BEING SPENT THIS YEAR?

***£17.8m - to deliver the Jubilee Gardens Extra Care scheme

***£13m - additional local investment in the £25m government-funded Town Deal project to transform Leyland town centre

***£7.360m - improving leisure centres

***£430k - further improvements to local play areas and open spaces, including in Longton, New Longton and Margaret Road and King George V Playing Field in Penwortham

***£300k - supporting businesses with grants and advice regarding energy, start-ups and improvements

***£240k - establishing an enhanced social prescribing service over the next two years, to support families and individuals in need

***£100k - grant fund to support community groups and other organisations

***£48k - establishing the South Ribble Family Wellbeing Centre in Bamber Bridge

***£20k - joining up local services so that they are responsive to local needs

Source: South Ribble Borough Council investment priorities, 2023/24