Parking Charges At Country Parks Scrapped Following Budget Consultation

This morning Wrexham Council published the full budget report going before the Executive Board next week, detailing further proposed savings/cuts.

Over the past few months it has been well documented that here is an estimated budget shortfall of at least £45m over the next three years for the Council, with a recent consultation ‘indicating broad support for the package of savings’. However there is still a shortfall of £726,000 in the savings being made.

Many Wrexham.com readers will remember the recent consultation, and some may have even taken part. The results summary details ‘strong opposition’ to three areas, namely:

• Reduction in planned highways maintenance (£107k) 70% of people disagreed, 24% agreed.
• Council tax rise of 5% (£800k) 58% disagreed, 37% agreed.
• Car Parking charges at country parks (£100k) 52% of people disagreed, 43% agreed.

Due to this the ‘above have been excluded from the savings proposals’. However the final recommendations on the Budget and Council Tax will be considered by the Executive Board in January.

Further to those the only changes listed are:

• The largest change is a £710,000 adjustment in savings noted under ‘No general inflation for price increases’ with a note saying the difference will be for ‘departments to absorb’.
• Another large change is the £149,000 difference noted in ‘Limit energy/fuel inflation’ where the explanatory note suggests the Medium Term Financial Plan had this figure calculated based off 10% not 2% that it has now been adjusted to.
• Review training budget in Adult & Social Care was listed as a £50,000 saving but is now £0 with a note saying ‘Service now part of Corporate & Customer Services’.
• Community Well Being & Development has ‘Review of Land Charges’ listed as £0 proposed savings, revised to now saving £16,000 however this is not a real change as its moved from Corporate & Customer Services.
• Corporate & Customer Services do have a proposed extra £50,000 of savings under ‘Review training budget’ with a note saying ‘This involves reviewing and re-prioritising training and refocusing on key essential training to meet statutory requirements. It will involve some reduction in the current training plan.’
• A proposed £8000 saving noted as ‘Review Trade Union facilities’ is being scrapped.

This year the consultation had 942 responses with 65 people attending the consultation events. Last year’s consultation saw just over 700 take part.

Speaking on Tuesday morning the Leader of the Council Mark Pritchard said: “I am delighted with the response, I would have wanted 5,000 or 10,000 but we are moving in the right direction and the people of Wrexham are letting us know what they want.”

He added his thanks to those who worked on and raised awareness of it saying: “Thanks to the staff and team around that who have worked to get the message out.”

Final recommendations on the Budget and Council Tax will be considered by the Executive Board in January, and the final local government revenue and capital settlement will be announced in early December which could impact the budget figures.

You can download the PDF budget report by Clicking here – Revenue Budget 201516.