‘Shocking’ cuts will hit people heavily
COUNCIL BUDGET PLANS SHOW NO END OF COUNTRY’S AUSTERITY
DISABLED drivers will be forced to pay for parking, council tax will rise again, and library opening hours will be slashed under Newcastle City Council plans to cut £20m next year.
Civic centre chiefs are also seeking massive savings on social care services, will make residents pay for replacement wheelie bins, and will bring in new Sunday and evening parking charges.
The council has announced that it needs to save £60m to balance its budget over the next three years, during which time 100 staff are expected to lose their jobs.
Opposition critics have been left “shocked” by the impact of the proposed cuts on the city’s most vulnerable people, but Labour council leader Nick Forbes said that the authority had no option as there is “no end of austerity in sight”.
The latest round of swingeing cuts will take the amount of money the council has been forced to save since 2010 to a staggering £327m.
Under the plans for 2019/20, council tax bills will go up by 3.95% – 1% of which is ring-fenced for adult social care – which equates to an increase of around £5.20 per month for an average Band D household.
Over the next three years, the council says it will find £22.4m in social care savings – despite the growing demands of an ageing population and the rapidly rising numbers of children in local authority care.
Coun Forbes said that the savings would be largely achieved through integrating services with the NHS, but admitted that the cuts will be “entirely counterproductive and really bad for people”.
Disabled Blue Badge holders will be charged for parking in multi-storeys and off-street car parks, while the Shopmobility service will be reduced to three days a week from the current six – with its users also losing their free parking entitlement.
The council says it will also review Sunday and evening parking charges – though the Alive After Five free parking scheme will continue.
The City Library will close at 5pm three days per week and not open on Sundays – just one part of £1.7m cuts to the library service in the coming years, which will see staffing reduced and the East End Library moved to the Shields Road Customer Service Centre.
Museums will also take a hit as the council cuts funding by £150,000 and closes the Discovery Museum and Laing Art Gallery on five Bank Holidays.
City residents will now be charged for replacing wheelie bins and the Brunswick recycling centre is earmarked for closure in 2020/21 – just two days after the council said it had “no immediate plans” to shut the site. The authority does not intend to use any of its estimated £10m of unallocated reserves to offset the cuts. Coun Forbes said that, while the council has averted the kind of financial disaster that has seen other local authorities go bust, these cuts will “bite deeper” into vital frontline services. He added: “There is no doubt that the council is increasingly being reduced to just being a provider of services to vulnerable people and that is not credible. What people expect from their council is the things they see around them – the state of our streets, the cleanliness of their back lanes, graffiti removal, libraries, leisure centres, community hubs – those are the things that people think the council is there to provide. And if the council can’t provide them in the future that creates a huge credibility gap for what the whole concept of Local Government is all about.” Coun Colin Ferguson, Lib Dem opposition finance spokesman, said: “We are absolutely shocked at where the knife has fallen.”
To generate extra income, the council plans to rent out more office space in the tower block section of the Civic Centre, increase council tax on empty properties, and sell more advertising including bridge banners and large digital adverts.
The council is consulting on its proposals until January 6, before plans are finalised by its cabinet in February and voted on at full council in March.
The council is increasingly being reduced to just being a provider of services to vulnerable people Nick Forbes