Have your say on the budget

The district council is inviting comments on its latest budget plan, which includes a tax rise and plans to “save” £4.4m over four years.

South Holland District Council wants to hear the opinions of all residents, partner organisations, businesses and other interested parties as part of the 2020/21 budget setting process.

At a meeting of South Holland’s Cabinet last week, councillors discussed the proposed budget for 2020/21 and future financial strategies. The budget proposes a £4.95 a year increase in Council Tax for Band D properties for 2020/21.

The increasing cost of housing the homeless and a decrease in fees raised by planning applications amount to £670,000 of the £872,000 deficit the council is looking to make up in the next financial year.

Business Rates were also £451,000 down on what the authority expected this financial year.

And what’s been described as ‘unprecedented’ uncertainty over funding for local government is among the reasons cited to look to budget to save £4.4m in the years up until March 2024.

The council says in its Budget and Mid-Term Financial Strategy that it has set an ‘Initial Savings

Efficiency Target’ of £872,000 for 2020/21 but that £277,000 has already been saved and £251,000 further identified leaving a shortfall of £344,000 worth of savings still to be identified.

It continues that more than £1m would need to be found in each of the three years after.

A council spokesman said: “If the plans are adopted, this would include significant investments in the Pride initiative of two dedicated street cleansing teams, a continued programme of development and acquisition of new homes in the district, building more commercial units to help smaller businesses establish themselves and grow and building on the new Market Town Initiative for Holbeach and Spalding.

“They also reaffirm continued investment in the waste collection service to maintain weekly collections, one of only a small number of councils in the country still to do so.”

The budget plans have been discussed by Cabinet and the draft budget is now available on the council’s website to read and comment on.

Residents and business-owners are invited to submit their comments from now until the end of Wednesday, January 29.

The spokesman continued: “These will then be taken into consideration before the draft budget is discussed at full council in February.”

The full draft budget is available to view in the cabinet agenda at www.sholland.gov.uk

To send feed any feedback, email consultations@sholland.gov.uk.