Budget Blog

Hastings Borough Council is facing an unprecedented financial challenge – not just for the coming year but for the foreseeable future. We have now published our spending plans for 2013-14 and will be listening to residents’ and businesses’ comments before agreeing the final budget on 27^th February.

With reductions in funding from central government the council is facing an 8.8% cut in its revenue spending power for next year – the maximum reduction the government has set and the largest in the South of England.

Since 2010 the council has seen a 50% real term reduction in funding from central government once inflation is taken into account (39% in cash terms).

We have already taken major steps to make ourselves more efficient – centralising all council staff in just two buildings (Aquila House and the Town Hall) and sharing some services with other councils.We have saved £1 million a year from reletting our major contracts jointly with other councils for waste collection and for parks and gardens. We have re-organised our senior staff structure saving £375,000. And there was no pay rise for staff again last year. But all of this has only gone some way to balancing our budget.

To bridge the gap, we are proposing to lose 40 posts (12 of them currently vacant), increase fees and charges (planning fees will rise by 15%), reduce our tourism budget by £50,000 and reduce our support for events by £20,000. We are also proposing to reduce grants to the voluntary sector by 8.8% in line with the cut in our revenue spending power. Proposed new arrangements for the housing register could save over £50,000.

Parking charges in the council’s car parks have not risen for two years but we are proposing to increase them by 10p an hour and then freeze them for two years again. This would help to fund the continuation of CCTV in the car parks.
 

For over ten years CCTV monitoring in Hastings has partly been supported from the surplus made from on-street parking charges. The County Council has taken back responsibility for on-street parking and handed over enforcement to a private company NSL. The County Council will no longer allow on-street parking income to be used for community safety purposes in the town. Parking charges in the Country Park will increase from £1 to £2 for a full day but with no change to the £25 annual season ticket.

However, there will be no increase in council tax this year – it last rose four years ago. We will be taking up the government’s offer of a grant equivalent to a 1% council tax rise and that means a 12-month freeze for the council taxpayer.

If you have thoughts about our budget proposals feel free to let us know in our draft budget consultation.

Will the sun shine on us in 2013?

Waiting for the Hastings v Middlesborough tie to get underway

2013 opened with glorious sunshine. On New Year’s Day the seafront was packed with promenaders as if it were a Summer’s day. The sun had appeared after what seemed weeks of being hidden behind rain clouds and stormy winds. Tragically 2012 had ended with one of the council’s close friends and collaborators sadly losing their life after an incident on that same seafront. Fran McKeown of Hastings Voluntary Action died despite the best efforts of the emergency services and passers-by to save her. She will be remembered with affection and gratitude by many of us in the town.

So what does 2013 hold for us? Will the sun continue to shine on Hastings?

We are all eagerly awaiting work commencing to restore our Pier with the council completing the compulsory purchase now that the Heritage Lottery has come up with the £11.4 million. The calendar of festivals and events is already prepared from Fat Tuesday in February, through Jack in the Green on May Day, right through to the Seafood and Wine Festival and a second Herring Fair. And the free entertainment offered by Stade Saturdays will continue for a second year from May to September. I’m sure the new management arrangements for St Mary in the Castle will really come into their own in 2013.

 

The council will carry on getting stuck in to derelict and scruffy buildings and just now work is underway on some of the most prominent of them – like the Congregational Church on Pevensey Road and buildings on Robertson Terrace and Eversfield Place. In Ore Valley we intend going through with the compulsory purchase and demolition of the eyesore that is the old Malvern pub with the aim of creating new houses on the site.

The council will also be launching a second round of its mortgage deposit scheme offering first time buyers of existing properties the chance to get a mortgage with just a 5% deposit and not the 25% they have been fearing. We are also looking to press ahead with a major scheme with a housing association to buy up privately rented houses in multiple occupation in Central St Leonards, improve them, and change them to larger flats aiming at a more settled community.

Our new waste contract negotiated jointly with other East Sussex councils starts in the middle of this year and will bring with it doorstep collection of glass as well as of a wider number of plastics and other recyclates. But whatever the weather forecast for the town there is a dark cloud hanging over the council with the government’s financial settlement for local authorities. While we welcome the prospect of a new Efficiency Support Grant Hastings Borough Council is still facing the largest reduction in its revenue spending power of any council in the south of England.

We will carry on trying to make ourselves as efficient as possible but the budget for 2013 will inevitably see rises in some fees and charges, reductions in some council services and fewer people employed by the council. Inevitably local people will feel the impact of these changes however much we try to shield them.

There will be some major challenges in 2013 but the council leadership remains optimistic and ambitious for the town and its future.