Millions to be spent on new investments

Millions of pounds will be invested into new schemes by Peterborough City Council with the authority admitting it “may need to take more risk than in recent times”.

The authority has revealed a new Commercial Strategy as it seeks to tackle a huge deficit due to massive cuts to its government funding.

The strategy, which runs until 2021, includes “aspirational targets” such as:

. Investing in schemes and projects which can deliver £15 million to £20 million of new revenue over five to 10 years

. Delivering a minimum of £5 million of new revenue income by March 31, 2020

. Delivering £4 million of capital receipts by March 31, 2020.

Revenue funding is money spent on services such as social care or park maintenance, while capital funding can only be spent on infrastructure projects such as road or building schemes.

The Conservative-run authority has seen its main government grant slashed by 80 per cent in the last seven years to just £10 million.

On top of that it has faced rising demand on services, leading to annual deficits of more than £20 million.

The council said its new aggressive approach towards investment is “driven by necessity”. It added: “We accept that the council may need to take more risk than in recent times in order to achieve its ambitions and commercial success.”

No specific investments have been revealed, but there will be concerns that the authority could be risking millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

Councils are able to borrow money at a low rate of interest from the Public Works Loan Board.

However, there are mounting concerns about the scale of investments being accrued by local authorities across the country as they find alternative methods to raise revenue to tackle their rising deficits.