2018 budget is crucial for city

ANOTHER year, another round of budget cuts (see pages 4&5).

Sadly, public services being forced to make savings is becoming as inevitable as paying the taxes that fund them.

Dundee City Council is probably past the point of being able to avoid slashing its budget every year — particularly with grants from government continuing to fall.

But the spending plans that the council will lay out in February are among the most important the local authority will ever put in place.

Next year is huge for Dundee. Locals will see the opening of the V&A and a new railway station among a raft of other developments. It’s expected that in turn, thousands more people will visit the city.

Therefore, the council will find itself under significant pressure to make sure Dundee is a place that people wish to return to.

John Alexander is hinting that the amenity of public places may be low on the priority list as it looks to protect key services such as education.

Although that’s what you would expect from a council when faced with less funding, and it is, of course, vital that our young people don’t miss out, it’s also important that the good work at the Waterfront and elsewhere isn’t undone by messy green spaces, dirty streets and roads covered with craters.

Few things irk the public more than the feeling that their area has been abandoned by the body tasked with looking after it.

Clearly, officials at Dundee House face an unenviable task and it will be impossible for them to please everyone.

It may just take the finest of balancing acts for them to achieve the best outcome possible for the city and its people.