Authority ‘may have to reconsider planned investment in projects’
A DISTRICT council in North Yorkshire may have to reconsider some of its planned investment work if it doesn’t get further financial support from the Government.
Hambleton Council’s chief executive Dr Justin Ives said the authority faced a £5m budget black hole as a result of the pandemic, largely due to a sharp decline in income sources such as council tax and leisure centres.
The Tory-run authority had a £6m shortfall but has been handed just under £1m from the Government as part of its £3.2bn bailout of the nation’s town halls.
Though it received only £37,000 in the first tranche, the council was handed more than £900,000 in the second tranche in recognition of the impact of the loss of many of its sources of income. Facilities like the Thirsk and Sowerby Leisure Centre have been closed since March.
Dr Ives said the authority had £17m in reserves but they were already earmarked for specific projects which could be put at risk if it had to use them to plug the hole in its budget.
He said: “We have things that we want to do with those to help the community so it’s about investment in leisure, it’s about the [Treadmills development
Dr Justin Ives, chief executive of Hambleton Council. of the former Northallerton Prison site]. There’s a number of projects and initiatives that we’ve got ongoing that those reserves are there to support and without government support we’ll have to re-look at those initiatives to see how we finance them moving forward.”
He said that his council was not currently having to consider a Section 114 order but that “if this lockdown were to continue for a year I think the council would have very tough decisions to make around some of its service provision”.
Without government support we’ll have to re-look at initiatives.