Could Covid-19 impact force council to do the unthinkable?

Leader asks if public would accept monthly bin collections if need arose

Cutting bin collections to just once a month could be among the proposals thrown into the melting pot amid the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

City council leader Rob Thomas conceded “unpopular decisions” will have to be made as he admitted jobs will likely be axed at the authority. And although no concrete proposal is yet on the table - and may never be - he says services such as waste collections will have to be considered alongside others.

“We’ve done pretty well managing our budget in recent years in the face of cutbacks in government support,” he said. “But if we are not going to be getting the best part of £10 million because of lost revenues, including parking income and difficulties in receiving rents, rates and council tax, then we have a cash flow problem. “We will have to start deferring capital projects and look at what other non-statutory services we offer.

“For example, while we have a statutory duty to collect refuse, we are not told how frequently. Would the public accept their bins being collected once a month? I have no idea or whether it would save significant sums of money. And should we continue to keep venues like museums shut after lockdown is lifted and whether we have to consult on that?”

Cllr Thomas was speaking to the Gazette as the authority’s officers continue to work frantically behind the scenes to prepare a new emergency budget to tackle a drastic drop in income. Revenue from property rentals, council tax and business rates has dried up, with the the loss of parking fees alone denting council coffers by £175,000 a week.

Already it has said many of its major capital projects which are not already contracted are likely to be put on hold.

But Cllr Thomas also admitted that job losses among its 450 staff are expected to be considered in the future. “We’ve been using up our reserves to stabilise past budgets but it’s getting to the point where unfortunately a number of redundancies will have to follow,” he said. “Staffing is usually a business’s biggest outgoing and the council is no different.” To compensate for loss of funding from central government in recent years, the city council has tried to generate more income locally, largely through parking and commercial property, to help maintain services. But bosses painted a bleak picture of the authority’s finances at a special video conference briefing with the Gazette two weeks ago.

Cllr Thomas suggested that a proposed £12 million move of the authority’s HQ to new offices in Wincheap may now never happen, while other capital schemes will be frozen.

“As a district, we are largely dependent on education, tourism and retail, which are among the hardest-hit sectors, but we just don’t know what our income will be in the future,” he said.

“We will have to find creative ways of getting through this otherwise we are going to have a lot of problems, because there are tough times ahead.”

Cllr Thomas says the authority has about £20 million in its reserves to help, but it would quickly be be eroded.

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Council leader Rob Thomas