The council’s new cabinet has agreed to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on filling potholes, tackling graffiti and planting trees.
The money comes from an underspend totalling about £2.3 million in the financial year to the end of March after tough decisions over the past year.
And £300,000 will be added to the council’s “Fairness Fund” which supports residents most affected by the national “cost of living crisis”, doubling the council’s existing contribution.
But £1 million from the underspend is expected to be held as a contingency to help address the pressures facing Brighton and Hove City Council’s finances.
These include a significant “savings requirement” as demand for services continues to increase while costs also rise, fuelled by factors such as wage inflation.
In total, councillors and finance chiefs are understood to be wrestling with a “forecast risk” of about £10 million.
In essence, if nothing changes, the council could be on course for a £10 million overspend by the end of the current financial year at the end of next March.
The figure is not as high as it has been at this stage in some previous years. In 2020, for example, councillors were warned that they faced a £36 million overspend.
This has traditionally become the point in the year at which the reality of budget savings targets start to be felt.
Today (Tuesday 2 July), the council said: “An extra £2.3 million has been allocated to important services in the city after Brighton and Hove City Council managed an underspend at the end of last financial year.
“The council’s cabinet approved the reallocation of the £2.3 million underspend when councillors met to discuss proposals at Brighton Town Hall last week (Thursday 27 June).
“Areas which will now receive a welcome increase in funding include
- £300,000 for the Fairness Fund, which supports residents most impacted by the national cost of living crisis – doubling the council’s existing contribution
- £100,000 to help tackle graffiti and tagging throughout the city
- £50,000 towards a tree planting programme focusing on areas which currently lack trees or experience poor air quality
- Extra funding for repairing potholes and roads, with a specific focus on improving access to parks, allotments and cemeteries
- £50,000 for work removing basal suckers and side shoots from on-street trees which, if left unchecked, can damage pavements
- a £185,000 investment in priority services
- funding for a series of community engagement events in areas of the city which experience deprivation
“Cabinet also agreed £1 million of the available funding created by the underspend would be held as a contingency to help address the many pressures facing the council’s finances, including a large savings requirement resulting from increased demand for services and higher levels of inflation.
“The meeting was the first cabinet meeting since the council changed to the new model from its previous committee system.
“The next cabinet meeting will take place on Thursday 18 July at Hove Town Hall.”
The predicted £36m overspend in 2020 is what the Greens inherited from the Labour administration after it collapsed and they had no choice but to take over. Greens brought this £36m prediction right down to an actual overspend of just £3m. And it’s this £3m figure that the Labour propaganda machine is now utilising to claim that the Greens had apparently ‘bankrupted the city’.
Unfortunately, that is a complete lie.
View from the pier, laughably incorrect. The greens blew a small fortune on nonsense. The list was endless and ended up as an election defeat. Stop spouting untrue statements. As a member of the public can we please demand the green party change their name to a different colour as they were anything but environmentally focused.
Agreed
Unfortunately it’s the truth
Except for the first three sentences.
Now now children!