Here is an edited version of what Conservative councillor Alistair McNair said as councillors met to set the council tax and Brighton and Hove City Council’s annual budget today (Thursday 24 February) …
This budget is set against a backdrop of waste and mismanagement. Well and truly the chickens have come home to roost for the Green/Labour coalition, with the costly impact of poor policy decisions made by councillors beginning to catch up with Brighton and Hove.
We’ve seen an increase in government grants this year and there should have been no shortfall.
Indeed, the Revenue Support Grant is going up by £221,000, which should – but I suspect won’t be – welcomed by either of the other two parties this evening. And a plethora of other government grants and awards outlined throughout the budget papers.
However, a succession of policy blunders from Labour and the Greens have set the city back, turning a £10 million surplus last year into an £18 million budget black hole this year. What a turnaround!
So how has the money been wasted? During the past 12 months the council has had to spend huge sums bringing in private contractors to fix the mess that poorly thought-through Labour/Green policies have created.
Private contractors have had to be brought in and paid to clear weeds on the pavements across the city after the council banned pesticides without putting an alternative plan in place.
In addition, as Councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn has found out through his questions, claims made against the council for pavement injuries are also running at their highest levels.
Private contractors have been brought in to repair council homes after the Labour/Green in-sourcing policy completely failed and the council’s new internal Housing Department managed to accumulate a backlog of 8,800 council house repairs in just 18 months.
And they’ve been brought in to clear rubbish from the pavements and deal with rats – which I’ve seen – after bin services failed once again after Labour and the Greens failed over many years to reform Cityclean.
In addition, huge sums have been thrown by councillors at resolving multiple industrial disputes, where the impact on taxpayers was barely given a second thought – £2.287 million was paid to resolve the housing repairs industrial dispute.
Somewhere in the range of £4 million to £14 million – yet to be revealed by the council – to resolve the bin strikes, with knock-on “equal pay claims” yet to be factored in.
Unfortunately, as this budget makes clear, it is the taxpayer that has to pay for these policy mistakes, waste and general mismanagement.
And plans have now been announced to hike council taxes and fees and charges once again and reduce services in some areas, hitting the poorest in the city most at a time when they can least afford it while squirreling money away into green pet projects.
The council has been pouring your taxpayers money down the drain, and now has created a budget black hole for the city which is growing at the same rate as the sink hole in Old Steine Gardens!
In this context, we are concerned that the Labour/Green coalition, in their amendments to this budget, want to pile on further pain.
Labour and the Greens once again are not doing the heavy lifting. Instead of identifying savings, they reach for the big red tax button and increase your fees and charges.
Families and key workers living in Brighton and Hove would be hit hard by Labour’s budget plan to hike residential parking permits by up to 90 per cent.
Under the plans, three nurses living in a house in central Brighton, commuting around the city and county providing care, would see a 90 per cent rise in the cost of buying a residential permit next year from £295 to £560.
A two car-family in Hollingdean would face a 30 per cent hike on last year’s permit charge, seeing the cost of a permit rise from £265 to £345.
Mums and dads living in the city often need two vehicles to go to work and go about their daily lives. This is the norm for many families living in places such as Hollingdean, Elm Grove or Hove Park and they should not be penalised for this.
Every year Labour and the Greens are making it harder and harder for people to live in this city through their tax hikes and fees and charges increases, particularly parking charges, where it is now actually cheaper in many instances to park on double yellow lines and risk a £30 fine rather than park in a council car park. This will affect the safety of many pedestrians.
This year is no different, with the council once again proposing a maximum council tax hike. This additional hike from Labour, introduced at the eleventh hour, would be another factor that would push families out of the city.
We are already seeing families leave the city at record rates and the demand for primary school places collapsing.
The Conservatives believe that the family areas of our city are just as important as central Brighton and need to be supported and represented at this budget.
It is important to remember that students don’t pay council tax, so every family we lose weakens the city’s tax base.
Furthermore, this policy looks like it is designed to penalise motorists in the city and make cars unaffordable for more people, made worse by the £1 million that the Greens have identified for a city transport model which will pave the way for a congestion charge or expensive ultra-low emission zone, as we have seen in London, at the huge cost to drivers of £15 a day just to drive around the city.
As the council’s finance officer has noted in their comments, this Labour plan would price more families out of having a second car, ultimately hitting those on lower incomes in Brighton and Hove.
This once again looks like it is all about penalising drivers and fulfilling the ideological policy of the Labour/Greens coalition of creating a car-free city.
We won’t be standing for these parking hikes which will only hurt the pockets of families in Brighton and Hove.
There are some good amendments, including the Green amendment supporting families, but they are definitely taking away with one hand and only maybe giving back with the other.
Budgets are about priorities and residents are watching tonight to see what the council will prioritise. Residents want to see funding spent on practical measures that will have an impact on the ground.
However, once again, this council appears to have its head in the clouds, with proposals to spend money on grand Green visions and bureaucracy and red tape which do nothing for our residents.
There are several areas of spending which wouldn’t pass the pub test and that residents will not support.
The Greens’ endless obsession with spending taxpayers’ money commissioning transport studies about more cycle lanes causes division in the city and doesn’t deliver residents’ priorities.
The Greens’ expensive carbon visions come at a cost of helping our communities here and now, for example, by upgrading our local parks.
We can find the funding through savings in the council’s bloated bureaucracy and by removing expenditures that do not benefit residents.
Rather than spend money on more bureaucracy, red tape and grand visions – or matters that residents will not see any benefit from – the city wants to see expenditure on practical measures where it will make a difference to residents on the ground.
Our Conservative amendments to the budget will once again focus on the people’s priorities for this city – a city that is well run, with decent services, and that treats its heritage with respect.
By removing wasted expenditure, we can set to work fixing three jewels of our Brighton and Hove heritage
- Madeira Terraces
- Stanmer Park
- The seafront, for example, our eight miles of seafront railings
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We can make our public domain safer for women, with measures to improve safety for the city’s night-time economy, invest in our public parks, valued more than ever before since the pandemic.
We can restore Green and Labour proposed cuts to services, including to libraries, and give the city a Jubilee summer to remember.
Make no mistake, restoring our heritage is a priority for the people of this city and the Conservatives are tonight proposing a three major heritage restoration upgrades.
The Conservatives have identified enough funding in this year’s budget to complete the restoration of Madeira Terraces.
Our amendments will redirect and reprioritise £16.19 million of spending from other areas towards the Madeira Terraces restoration works, for the first time completing the required budget for the project.
This is the moment for our city to finally commit to completing the Madeira Terraces restoration, a scheme close to Councillor Joe Miller’s heart.
Through previous work of the community by crowdfunding and the efforts of the Conservative team in the past two budgets, the council currently has funding available to complete phases 1 and 2 of the project and restore up to 80 of the 151 arches, depending on procurement costs.
The amendments announced today would provide a further £16.19 million to complete the project, with all 151 arches renovated, fully restoring the Madeira Terraces to their former glory.
It is time for the excuses from this council to end. Residents and community groups such as Save Madeira Terraces Campaign want to see this project treated as the priority that it should be for the city.
The money is there and, as we have shown, it can be found with sensible savings targeted at bureaucracy, red tape and areas of spending which don’t benefit residents.
We now only need councillors to vote for it and for the first time will be able to say that this project is fully funded. What a moment for the city that would be.
The Conservatives, and Councillor Robert Nemeth and Councillor Dawn Barnett in particular, will also propose major capital investment to fund the restoration of Stanmer Park’s historic agricultural buildings.
Under the Conservatives’ budget amendments, £2.35 million would be redirected to bring to fruition a long-standing council plan to restore the historic courtyard of traditional agricultural buildings on the Stanmer Estate.
The restoration would bring the listed buildings back to life, repurposing them for a range of uses including community spaces, workshops, office space and retail.
The agricultural buildings represent another listed asset in our city that is currently sitting on the Heritage At Risk register, having been abandoned for too long.
Much like Madeira Terraces, plans have been around for some time to restore the buildings, but allocating the funding has not been prioritised by the administration.
The Stanmer Park Estate, which has been in council hands since 1947, is a special place for local residents and the residents of the city as a whole.
The Conservatives want to see the city’s listed assets restored as a priority. This is not only important for our heritage but also provides a major opportunity for the community and tourism economy, opening up spaces for new uses.
Thirdly, Conservative councillors are asking the council to agree to a major new investment programme to upgrade and replace a forgotten heritage icon of this city, which nonetheless is just as important – our seafront railings, which Councillor Mary Mears feels passionately about.
The Conservatives will propose that £850,000 is allocated for the programme this year, a sum which would add to the £125,000 secured by the Conservatives last year and that is already set aside for the upgrade, for a total project budget of £975,000.
The current state of the railings reflects badly on the city. There are many stretches of the seafront where the railings needed repairing or upgrading.
Our Conservative amendments, championed and put together by Councillor Dee Simson, make women’s safety in the night-time economy a key priority for our city.
Brighton is starting to get a reputation as being unsafe for women after dark and there are many steps the council should be taking tonight to improve the situation.
Women’s safety has become a significant issue in Brighton over the past year, with statistics released showing the city performing poorly across a number of areas.
We have seen worrying statistics during the past year about how far Brighton is lagging behind the rest of the country in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour – and many women are now intimidated by how run down and dangerous areas of central Brighton have become.
Central Brighton recently ranked eighth highest for reported crime out of 33,000 areas across England and Wales according to a national analysis of crime reports, with Pavilion Gardens and surrounds recording seven incidents of rape in three years.
There have also been 100 incidents of drink spiking across the wider county over a 10-month period, many in Brighton and Hove.
The council has simply not being doing enough to tackle the issue. In Old Steine Gardens, a crime hotspot, we found that nine out of ten street lights had not been working for years and incredibly the council did not even bother to put an application in for Safer Streets Funds for better CCTV and lighting in 2020 when invited to.
There is a feeling that the council has not made safety for women in the night-time economy a priority in its budget and many women would like to see more done, which is why we are putting forward this amendment.
This package of amendments will focus on tackling some of the key issues in central Brighton, including installing better street lighting and more CCTV which Councillor Nick Lewry will talk about in more detail.
We are looking to start tackling the drink spiking epidemic in the city by providing test kits to our licensed venues.
There is also proposed funding to better resource key services such as the taxi marshals, “Ask Angela” and the beach buggy which are all an important part of delivering a safe night out in central Brighton.
These measures are needed to turn around the issue and make sure Brighton does not continue to gain a reputation for being unsafe for women.
Since the pandemic, residents have been using and relying on their local parks more and more and as a council we need to recognise that and provide additional resources.
By deferring spending on expensive carbon visions, we can make a real difference to our communities here and now, by upgrading our local parks.
The Conservatives – councillors Anne Meadows, Carol Theobald and myself – are proposing better boundary protection for Patcham Place Recreation Ground to protect against unauthorised encampments.
The large public park, which is located next to Patcham Roundabout, another forgotten area, has been a hotspot for unauthorised traveller encampments for years, with recurring issue causing considerable concern for residents and community sports groups that use the park and cost the council time and resources in enforcement and clean-up operations.
Hangleton and Knoll councillors Dawn Barnett and Nick Lewry will request funding to kick start a new skate park at Knoll Park.
Under the plan, put forward by the Conservatives, a skate park would also tie in with the outreach work of the Hangleton and Knoll Project, a community development charity which operates a café at Knoll Park during the summer months.
Patcham ward councillors – councillors Carol Theobald, Anne Meadows and myself – will request a £20,000 top up to the planned refurbishment of Horsdean’s Vale avenue playground.
The playground is due to have a £45,000 refurbishment in 2022-23 but Conservatives are worried that this sum will not go far enough to properly upgrade facilities to meet the needs of residents in the Horsdean area of north Patcham.
Vale Avenue Playground, which is the only park serving the Horsdean area and close to Horsdean recreation ground and a large residential area, currently only has swings and a slide and doesn’t meet the community’s needs. It would also give the council another chance to show it can consult the public on its parks’ facilities.
And Councillor Dee Simson and Councillor Steve Bell will be putting forward their local proposal for a crossing at the Bexhill Road park.
Litter is of great concern to residents. The Conservatives will provide six additional mobile cameras to help prevent fly-tipping.
Some great Conservative proposals! Money spent, not on bureaucracy, but on the people’s priorities, restoring community services cut by Greens and Labour.
Our amendments would reverse some of the cuts proposed by Labour and the Greens. We would
- reverse the proposed £48,000 saving from stopping the Youth Arts programme which Councillor Vanessa Brown feels passionately about
- reinstate £1,000 ward budgets which go directly to local community groups
- reinstate the £100,000 youth-led grants programme
- and reverse the proposed saving in community libraries of £17,000
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The Conservatives want to make sure that the city properly marks the Platinum Jubilee year. Thank you to Councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn for reminding us of this significant moment and securing further funding for the restoration of the Madeira Terraces.
The Conservatives, who have been critical of the council’s lack of planning for the Platinum Jubilee, will look to ensure the event is properly marked in a way that will be memorable for residents.
Under the Conservative proposal, £70,000 would be redirected to fund jubilee celebrations – one thousand for each year of Her Majesty’s reign. The funding would provide community events over the jubilee weekend.
We would fund a City in Bloom across the jubilee weekend in red, white and blue flowers. Thank you to Councillor Carol Theobald for your petition and hard on this.
And £7,000 would go towards a jubilee statue commemorating Her Majesty and her platinum jubilee year, with the council to also send a card of congratulations to Her Majesty on behalf of the residents of Brighton and Hove.
This is a positive Conservative vision for this city. Our proposals would stop Labour and Green cuts and waste – and turn our city into one of pride and optimism. All of this is just a vote away.
If councillors tonight can make the decision to put residents first and vote accordingly, we can restore our heritage and once again have a city which all residents can feel proud of.
