Brighton and Hove Unison is urging people to join its protest in the lobby of Hove Town Hall ahead of next week’s budget meeting.
The city’s councillors will meet next Thursday at 4.30pm to debate and vote on this year’s budget options – some of the most complicated and contentious the city has ever known.
The Brighton Children’s Centre Campaign plans to march from New Road along Western Road from 4pm in a bid to persuade councillors to refuse any cuts.
Meanwhile, the Brighton People’s Assembly Against Austerity is holding its own protest outside the Town Hall from 3.30pm – and Unison is now holding a protest inside the lobby from 3.30pm.
In a statement on its blog, it said: “Unison is urging everyone who lives or works in Brighton & Hove to come to the lobby of the council’s budget-setting meeting on Thursday, 26th February at 3.30pm at Hove Town Hall.
“Various options will be debated, with the Greens, Labour and the Tories on the council all proposing their own cuts. A minority of Greens are calling for no cuts to be made at all.
“Unison is calling for a large lobby to show all the councillors that we oppose any cuts to vital services and jobs in the city. Come and join us!”
The options currently open to councillors are detailed in the flow chart below. However, more options may emerge as parties compromise to avoid a stalemate similar to the standoff at last week’s budget committee meeting.
I know we would all prefer to have all the services possible, but we are in a situation where councils have to make cuts and to concentrate on providing core services as a result of the austerity measures.
Other councils in the area are having to make difficult decisions and we are no different – although the greens seem to be living in a weird cloud-cuckoo land where they think the laws of the land and the financial situation does not apply to them.
So my real question is – which core services do we really need to maintain?
IMHO, the council should concentrate on these core services, and if the Unison sponsored protest only impacts what they call vital services, but they are in fact non-core services, then they may well have to be cuts and there may well be pain.
This is exactly what happens in the private sector when companies have to make savings to ‘balance the books’ – why shouldn’t this also apply to the public service?