Is it unreasonable to expect compensation over wind farm?
THE news that Rossendale council stands to miss out on up to £20m as a result of the government blocking an extension to the Scout Moor wind farm has prompted dire warnings about what happens next.
Council leader Alyson Barnes has suggested more council cuts will follow, or that council taxes will have to increase instead.
On a Facebook conversation about the Free Press article last week, many were quick to criticise the council for banking on money which wasn’t guaranteed.
On that score, I have some sympathy with the council – although I think it is still too early to be warning of more spending cuts.
From looking at council reports, I’m not sure the council had banked on the money as guaranteed.
I think officers had just included the fact a new revenue stream was likely to open up in the form of renewable energy payments which are payable to any council which supports things like wind farms.
My reading of council documents is that were the annual payments to commence, it would help offset some of the government grant cuts which continue to be implemented every year as ministers dodge making savings themselves by just giving less money to local councils where they can.
So Rossendale in one way is now in the same position as those councils which weren’t being asked by developers to permit wind farms in their areas.
That won’t make it any easier to fill the funding gap, which is the challenge now facing the council.
Step one has surely got to be to lobby government.
On one hand, the government has an incentive scheme in place to reward councils which permit wind farms, but on the other hand it refuses permission for a wind farm here despite it appearing to meet all the planning criteria set by government.
In such circumstances, is it unreasonable to expect the government to compensate Rossendale council – and by extension the people of Rossendale – for the impact a decision taken by the government will have on the area?
If that route fails – and the government has proven time and again to have a tin ear when it comes to council funding requests – then there could still be hope in the form of the collapsed empty homes scheme which has cost Rossendale dear.
Our council was left carrying the can – or holding the chequebook – when a project to refurbish hundreds of houses fell apart after the company asked to administer the scheme collapsed.
There are still so many questions we as taxpayers deserve answers to about how this happened, but a silver lining may still be there. The collapse of the scheme has cost Rossendale council £1.4m this year, for which it had budgeted only £200k at the start of the year.
It has dipped into its reserves to cover some of the other costs, but Coun Barnes has sought to reassure residents that some of that cost will be met by ‘favourable variances’ on spending elsewhere.
This means that the council will have underspent against planned budgets in other departments.
Good news that the council therefore has the money to spend, bad news it has had to be spent on something which taxpayers shouldn’t be picking up the bill for.
That underspend could be good news – can the council deliver the same underspend against budget next year?
If so, maybe budget cuts can be mitigated, but first we need to know what it is the council hasn’t spent cash on that it intended to.
As for council tax rises, it surprises me that this is still a thing to be debated.
The most the council can raise taxes by is two per cent without going to a public referendum, which I suspect everyone knows a council is highly unlikely to win.
Paying an extra 2pc a year doesn’t feel like bad value for money – and probably something we should learn to accept, regardless of the fall-out of the windfarm decision.