Budget deal will help in future

This year’s Holyrood budget deal will in the long run dig council services out of the financial hole they have been in for decades.

Stirling Council residents are asked the same questions every year about where damaging cuts should fall. In the last two years of budget deals between the Greens and SNP, services have been saved. Cuts to the Big Noise project and Smith Art Gallery and Museum were two high profile cuts that were withdrawn last year as a result of the additional money we secured.

Already the closure of two primary schools in Clackmannanshire have been cancelled as a result of this year’s budget deal. Once again Labour, Tory and LibDem MSPs have sat on their hands and delivered nothing but empty criticism.

However this year’s Holyrood budget will still be challenging for councils, there is still a gap that needs to be closed. In light of cuts from the Tory Westminster Government and rising demand for services, councils need more powers to raise money to protect frontline services. We cannot afford to allow the funding crisis to repeat year after year, fundamental changes are needed.

As part of this year’s agreement the first steps will be taken to finally scrap the Council Tax and a new fairer system of local tax will be brought in, with a Parliamentary Bill lodged within this Parliamentary session.

We have secured a commitment to a stable funding settlement for councils over three years, so they can plan rather than lurching from one year’s budget to the next. New powers are being put in place to set up a tourism levy, a tax on vacant and derelict land and a workplace car parking levy to give councils the tools and choices about how to raise more revenue locally.

An increase in the plastic bag tax and a levy on single use coffee cups are other powers that combined can raise significant sums to protect services while solving litter problems.

A tourism levy is a no brainer for Stirling and the national park. Straight after the budget, Edinburgh announced it would be the first council to adopt the levy because it will bring in millions of pounds every year to protect services and facilities that visitors and locals use.

A modest levy of £1-£2 a night would be unnoticed by visitors and is now the norm across much of Europe. We have seen for example many public toilet closures in the Stirling area, a tourism levy could re-open them, we need to restore civic pride to communities.

It’s important that councils choose with local residents which powers are used and how.

There has been much debate for example about powers to introduce a Workplace Parking Levy. The levy may be more applicable to congested cities with more pressure on car parking than Stirling. However we need to recognise that financial support for bus services across the area have faced huge cuts, leaving the third of people who have no access to a car abandoned.

I’d like to see major employers with vast car parks like the Prudential make more of a contribution to fund solutions for their own staff and the wider public.

One project that will waste millions pounds of public money and worsen congestion is the Viewforth Link Road.

Putting a major distributor road through Kings Park makes no sense. While MP Stephen Kerr is finally sounding sceptical of the project he should have a word with his Tory councillor colleagues who put the ill-conceived road into Stirling’s Transport Plan in the first place.