Council tax frozen for sixth years
Tue 11 Mar 2014The councillors also repeated their commitment to invest millions in local services to make the borough a better place to live.
£93.5million will be spent to create 3,570 additional primary school places by April 2018. A further £37million will be spent on special education expansion. Ealing’s youngest residents will also benefit from £1million of funding for additional part-time nursery places for disadvantaged two-year-olds.
Parks, sports and leisure facilities will also be given a boost with new investment in playgrounds, play equipment and the promise of a new skate park.
In addition to the ongoing regeneration of the borough’s towns, three new open spaces will be created by bringing back to life wasted or derelict sites as part of the council’s £625,000 Places for People scheme.
Funding from central government has been significantly reduced. This, plus inflation and extra demand on services, has forced the council to find £87million a year of cost reductions by April 2015 - giving it less money to spend on running services. This year the council’s main government grant will be reduced by £17.4million.
Councillor Julian Bell, leader of the council, said: "Many local people are struggling to keep up with rising bills and are being squeezed by low or no pay rises while other household costs continue to soar."
"The council has shown it can deliver value for money services, despite ongoing cuts, which has allowed us to freeze council tax for six years and ease the financial pressure on local people."
The government is providing a grant for authorities who set a 0% council tax increase in 2014-15. The grant is equivalent to a 1% increase in council tax but after the grant period has ended leaves a funding shortfall of more than £1million a year for each year after that.If you have a local news story, share it with the rest of Southall, by using the contact form.