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South Ribble Council vows to improve services
"We'll freeze council tax and still improve services."
That was the claim of South Ribble Council chiefs, when they rubber-stamped budget plans for 2010/11 at a meeting of the full council.
Coun Stephen Robinson, cabinet member for finance and resources, said 2009 had been a difficult year for the cash-strapped authority and 2010 would be similar.
He said, in real terms, the local authority had suffered a decrease in Government funding and had to make 920,000 efficiency savings.
This was on top of more than 2m of cutbacks made in the current financial year.
However, Coun Robinson said the council was able to invest in positive schemes, including 2.3m on improving waste collection services.
He said: "The pilot programmes to collect food waste weekly from more than 4,000 households, run with the county council, has proved successful.
"Plans arewell in hand for renewing the fleet of waste vehicles and purchase of over 45,000 wheelie bins for the enhanced services."
Once police and fire authority rises have been taken in to account, the overall increase at 0.4 per cent is the lowest since council tax was introduced in 1993.
The average Band D home owner will pay 203.30.
Coun Robinson said: "I am delighted that we have been able to freeze our share of council tax, despite the problems that have been forced upon us.
"This has been achieved while maintaining frontline services and avoiding compulsory redundancies."
In an attack on the Government, Coun Robinson said: "The sterling is down the pan, our once much envied pensions have been slaughtered and the dole queue is much greater than in 1998."
He criticised South Ribble Labour MP David Borrow for mistakes in a leaflet regarding 5m the council has frozen in the Icelandic Bank.
He said: "He states that just over 324,000 has been returned when the sum is 579,924.
"He then asserts that this has come from Landsbanki when in fact the amounts have been paid by the Heritable Bank."
Mr Borrow said: "The long and short of it is the council has lost hundreds of thousands of pounds."
Opposition councillors proposed a one per cent increase, which, said Labour group leader Matthew Tomlinson, could help charities such as Women's Refuge and SLEAP. He said members' allowances should be cut by 20,000.
He said: "There are eight cabinet members who get 5,000 and what we want is to halve that number. Instead of getting rid of senior staff this would help to reduce the costs."
The amendment was rejected 35-10.
The budget was approved 37-7 with one abstention.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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