Council needs £8m savings
BRIDGEND council (BCBC) still has to make £8m cuts next year to balance the books, despite extra money from the Welsh Government, its council leader has said.
BRIDGEND council (BCBC) still has to make £8m cuts next year to balance the books, despite extra money from the Welsh Government, its council leader has said.
Councils across Wales have been battling for extra cash for the year ahead, warning that vital services will be affected due to ongoing budget cuts if they don’t receive enough.
Last week Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford announced further funding for Welsh councils meaning BCBC will receive a budget cut of 0.3% rather than 0.6%.
However council leader Huw David has said the local authority still has to find millions of pounds of cuts and will still have to increase council tax.
Speaking at a full council meeting on Wednesday November 21, he said: “While the extra money that’s been allocated to some of our services is of course to be welcomed we still have to make savings of £8m next year to balance the books - it is go- ing to be difficult to shield schools and social services from reductions but we will do our level best.
“We are still crunching the numbers and we need to establish what, if any, conditions are attached to the funding.
“Unfortunately it is still a reduction in our revenue support grant compared to last year.”
The additional fund- ing in the local government revenue settlement means that the council is set to receive around £590k extra than previously thought.
The local authority is also expecting to receive around £4m more for its capital funding projects between now and 2020/21.
Councillor David said: “This is certainly good news because we have a heavily subscribed capital programme and we want to fund as many of those investments as we can.”
Upcoming projects planned by BCBC include the development of Salt Lake Car Park in Porthcawl, an £8m highways depot at Waterton and the second phase of new schools in the county under the 21st Century Schools Programme.