WHAT A COUNCIL CAN DO FOR YOU
..and services some have stopped doing
If you have ever wondered what you local council does for you, the answer is a lot less than it used to. While they are responsible for education, housing, waste management, social services, highways, planning, and emergency planning, among many other things, since 2010 when the Tories first came into government there have been swingeing cuts.
Care homes, creches and libraries have closed and bin collections, bus routes and school crossing patrols have gone.
And most agree it is set to get much worse. Yesterday we listed 40 councils warning they are on the brink of going bust, or have admitted to multimillion pound budget shortfalls.
Many other local authorities are desperately trying to stave off bankruptcy by cutting even more services and amenities, and hiking up everything from council tax to parking and crematorium charges.
PROBLEMS
But while the floodgates of council failure creak ever louder, this is a disaster that has built up over 14 years, as Tory austerity brought cuts to the amount passed on to local government.
Yesterday Shadow Communities Secretary Angela Rayner accused Rishi Sunak of applying a “sticking plaster” to council finances after he was forced to bail out struggling councils in England with a £500million funding pot.
“The Tories have brought councils to the brink, offering them a very small amount which cynically to me is about them trying to just get them over the line for a general election,” she said.
“But it’s not going to do anything about the long-term problems that we would inherit and we’re under no illusions about the scale of those problems.”
She added she was “absolutely worried” about the prospect of many more councils declaring bankruptcies in the coming years.
She said: “They’ve seen these added costs – temporary accommodation, children’s services, and the pressures of the cost of living crisis that’s been created by the Tories – this real perfect storm for local authorities.”
Here is just a snapshot of the casualties of council cuts down the years….
Leeds city council axed creche facilities at six leisure centres in 2010 to save £60,000 a year. The service, which encouraged parents to exercise, had looked after 7,264 children the previous year.
Redbridge council closed Wanstead Youth Centre, by the charity Vision, in October after a review found £2.4m of investment was needed to meet modern health and safety standards.
Lancashire county council
closed down 29 libraries in 2016 in a bid to make £200m worth of cuts.
Bury council slashed its bin collections in October 2015 to just one every three weeks, the first in England to do so. The only two council-run care homes in the
Royal Borough of Kingston, West London, closed between 2015 and 2018, with residents forced to move out. The last, Murray House, was rated “good” across the board by the Care Quality Commission, but the council said refurbishing the building was “not cost effective”.
Wirral council in Merseyside turned off or dimmed street lights in July 2014 on some of the town’s key routes as part of council cuts.
Kent county council pulled funding from the only youth club on the Isle of Sheppey in 2012 as part of a raft of cuts. Sheerness County Youth Club was saved at the last minute when volunteers took over.
Nottinghamshire county council shut three care homes, Woods Court in Newark, St Michael’s View in Retford and Kirklands at Kirkby in Ashfield, in 2015 saying it was too costly to modernise them, despite 9,000 people signing petitions against the closures.
Wiltshire council announced it was to reduce funding by 50% for friendship and luncheon clubs for the elderly and adults with learning disabilities in 2022, with the rest scrapped a year later.
Derbyshire county council cut support for 26 bus routes in 2018 to try to save £1m, despite buses being the only mode of transport for thousands of rural residents. Thirteen disappeared for good as the council could no longer subsidise them.
Between 2010 and 2023 Sheffield city council cut the number of youth clubs it funded from 41 to 23, and cut 121 youth worker jobs. One of the centres, The Hub, was forced to shut in 2012 after 40 years working with Black and ethnic-minority youths.
Bristol city council announced plans to get rid of all their lollipop ladies and men in 2016 in a bid to save £360,000 a year. Council chiefs said they could no longer afford the service, which helped pupils for 80 schools cross the roads, blaming a shortfall of £43m.
Hertfordshire county council closed six youth centres in Hitchin, Hatfield, Royston, St Albans, Buntingford and Rickmansworth, as part of measures to save nearly £1m.
Cash-strapped Dudley council announced a reduction in grass cutting in parks in September 2016 to save £50,000 a year.
A care home rated as excellent was shut by Oldham council in 2011. Limecroft Care Home, which provided respite care and has a day centre for people with dementia, was caring for 21 residents.
Since 2010, Tameside Metropolitan Borough council cut spending on early intervention support, which prevents children from coming to harm, by around £18.3m, according to Pro Bono Economics – a drop of 59%.
Middlesbrough council shut four creches operating on weekday mornings at the Rainbow, Neptune, Southlands and Pallister Park leisure centres in 2013, saying they were no longer financially viable.
Since 2014 around 70% of street lights have been switched off between 1am and 5am by Essex county council. The authority is now proposing to keep them off for longer, between midnight and 6am, in a bid to save £1.3m a year.
Oxfordshire county council approved plans to cut day centres for older people and those with learning disabilities from 22 to just eight in 2017, saving over £3m.