This budget sees residents get worse services for higher costs

TWO weeks ago, Wokingham Borough Council’s Liberal/Labour Coalition presented a budget for 2023/24 that demonstrates that they are not delivering on the priorities of local residents.

Their budget is built on a falsehood that has been repeated since the Liberal Democrats took power with the help of their allies.

They claim that they have no choice because of the state they found the Council’s finances in.

Every poor decision, that is their excuse. It’s always somebody else’s fault. And it’s simply not true.

But don’t just take my word for it.

At January’s Executive meeting, the Council’s own Chief Financial Officer said that the Council’s Finances were in good shape under the previous Conservative administration.

The CFO’s report set out that, in 2020, Wokingham Borough was rated in the top 20 for financial sustainability by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy.

What the Liberal Democrat/ Labour budget offers residents is worse services for higher costs.

Your bins will be collected less often, projects such as the solar farm to generate an income significantly delayed, Bohunt

School expansion delayed and now under threat, real terms cut in road maintenance, and no progress on housing numbers or the Local Plan.

In return for this catalogue of failure, people will pay more Council Tax, higher fees, and increased charges.

When residents made the decision to leave this Council as no overall control last May, they signalled that they wanted something different.

We accept that.

But almost 10 months on, it’s becoming increasingly clear to local people that the Liberal Democratled experiment has not only failed, but it is also one that they can ill-afford.

At the Budget meeting I and my Conservative colleagues proposed £2.1 million of savings from the Liberal Democrat-led Coalition Budget, offering a prudent and fully costed alternative to the administration’s Budget while being able to invest more in services that are important to residents.

The savings were all found by reducing proposed increased spending on back-office staff, on projects in the budget but no longer progressing, removing expensive interim posts, and saving of £341,000 extra spending from the Council’s PR machine.

These are all areas where residents want to see the

Council make savings, not spending more.

By finding these savings we were able to demonstrate how a Conservative administration would be able to fully fund our promises, including freezing car parking charges this year, and an above inflation increase in road and pothole repairs as well as keeping weekly bin collections and we would have still been able to save more than £600,000 after doing all that.

We would do this without the need to cut residents services or support for the most vulnerable, which the Lib Dems and Labour have been scaremongering about.

Conservatives have had a 20-year record of maintaining and improving local services you value whilst saving money on overheads, we can do it next year if you give us the chance.

The residents of Wokingham Borough deserve better.

They deserve an administration that will invest in services, not cut them.

They deserve to have their taxes and charges kept to a level they can afford.

They deserve to have a Council Leader who will actually act to cut housing numbers and plan for future development, not just talk about it.

They deserve to have a

Council that will deliver on local communities’ priorities.

They will get all this if a Conservative administration is elected in May.