Budget cuts make the council feel ‘like being on Titanic’
ONGOING budget cuts in Bridgend and an ever-increasing reduction in services feels like being on the Titanic, a town councillor has said, asking council chiefs when the local authority was going to hit the iceberg.
Bridgend County Borough Council is facing £10m cuts to balance the books next year.
The cuts are on top of the tens of millions of pounds of savings it has already made in the past few years.
The council’s interim head of finance Gill Lewis told a special town and community council forum yesterday that finding the cuts would not be easy.
She said: “We can’t pretend any longer that services are going to continue as they always have.
“Some will have to stop, some will most definitely be reduced.
“The reduction proposals will emerge as cabinet, council, the budget research and evaluation panel and directors work through them.”
Officers said the best case scenario involved a £2m cut in funding from Welsh Government while the most likely scenario was a £3m cut and the worst case scenario was a £6m cut.
The local authority is currently looking at increasing the council tax by 4.5%. Last year it increased by 5.4%.
The council said financial pressures involved unknown pay awards and pension costs.
Concerns have been raised that a delay in a comprehensive spending review being undertaken by UK Government will mean the budget for local government will not be set until March next year - an issue when BCBC has to set its budget at the end of February.
Maesteg Town Councillor Phil Jenkins asked council leader Huw David and chief executive Mark Shephard whether there would come a time when they would have to say they could no longer run the authority.
Cllr Jenkins said: “We know we’re on the Titanic. How far away is this iceberg before we’re hitting it?
“We can’t go stumbling in the dark all the time - there will come a time when people will say ‘enough is enough.’
“At the end of the day you are a business and when a business becomes unsustainable it goes into liquidation.
“All 22 local authorities in Wales are in the same boat and I sympathise entirely but we cannot keep going on like this - we need to know exactly where we’re going.
“Have you got a fallback plan when you say the council will only run education and social services and everything else will be devolved to local town and community councils?
“At the end of the day there will come a crisis and we are looming into it.”
Cllr David said there were already some local authorities in England that had “hit the ice” and effectively gone bankrupt.
He said: “I can reassure you of one thing - as long as I’m leader of this council we will not bankrupt this authority. There is no way that is happening.
“All 54 members will ensure we set a balanced budget. The risk is if austerity doesn’t end then we will be left with providing education and social services.”
The council is due to run its budget consultation from September 9 to November 3.
Council officers plan to attend town and community councils during the consultation period to explain the budget proposals. THESE amazing images have captured glowing bioluminescent plankton on Gower.
Also known as “sea sparkle” or Noctiluca scintillans, the incredible sight turns the sea a bright blue colour due to warm weather.
Daniel Meredith, from Caerphilly, managed to capture the magical moment at Port Eynon on his camera during the early hours of Sunday morning.
The 37-year-old said: “I took the photo at about 1.50am on the far left side of the beach at Port Eynon. The bioluminescent plankton wasn’t a strong show, they would appear sporadically throughout the waves so it was quite tricky to judge which wave to take an image of. I’ve been chasing it for weeks now from Three Cliffs Bay, Port Talbot, Southerndown and at Horton Bay.”
Mr Meredith said he was thrilled to finally get to see the neon blue colour in the water, after spending hours at the beach.
He added: “I was ecstatic that I saw the waves rolling and turning blue and I pressed the shutter on my camera and jumped up.
“I couldn’t believe that image I had on the back of my camera. I was jumping around, giggly with excitement. This was the best photo I have ever taken of the sea sparkles. It was just a surreal moment and it still gives me goosebumps. To be under the stars and the Milky Way with the bioluminescent plankton in the waves is nothing short of magic.”
Last summer the stunning phenomenon was also spotted at Aberavon Beach. Glowing bright blue when disturbed by things like waves or currents, they often appear in warm coastal waters, like those in the Maldvies and Tasmania.