Leader of Stroud District Council says hard times are still to come

In putting the budget proposals together, we are very conscious that the country is still in recession, inflation is increasing and within the next few months we will have a new government tasked with tackling the £178 billion government debt. The impact of the recession continues to be felt by households and businesses across the whole District.

The recession means we continue to have high demand for benefits, housing advice and council housing. I pay tribute to staff that are dealing efficiently and effectively with these increased demands. Our revenue and benefits service has coped with the increase while maintaining quick benefit processing times as well as offering a new bespoke service to people being made redundant by local companies. Benefits totalling £32.5 million have been paid compared to £26 million the previous year, an increase of 25%.

The recession has also meant that, like many businesses, our income is down and the prospects for next year are not likely to improve.

I have become very concerned at the prospects for young people in the District during the recession. I have discussed this with the Chief Executive and we have committed the council to Backing Young Britain. We are the first council in Gloucestershire to do so and we are playing an active part in providing jobs for unemployed young people using the national Future Jobs Fund.

In view of what I have said about the recession, we have to balance our budget needs with the tax demand on hard pressed council taxpayers.

We have managed to identify £720,000 of efficiencies and savings, about 5% of our net revenue budget, next year. This is being achieved by looking carefully across all the council’s work. These savings amount to nearly £3.3 million over the period of our medium term financial plan.

We are continuing to invest in the people’s priorities.

Our work on climate change has been very successful and this track record has been recognised by the Government. We have become one of only two councils in the country to be asked to manage a new scheme helping people invest in renewable energy in their homes. The Pay As You Save scheme will see half a million pounds invested in homes across the District.

We are also investing a further £100,000 in continuing our successful programmes for the domestic, business and community sectors. £50,000 will deliver more domestic measures that are targeted to households in fuel poverty and a further £50,000 reserve will enable us to fund initiatives during the year as other bidding opportunities arise. I know some in the chamber would want more but this is what we can afford given we also need to help provide more affordable housing, regeneration and support successful work with young people.

Our support for people in housing need has increased as the recession has deepened and our housing advice team has risen to the challenge. We are ensuring that the staffing resources are available by investing £20,000 a year to keep our work on homelessness and advice moving forward.

We continue to provide capital funding on affordable housing, and a breakdown of 121 affordable homes completed during 2008/9 was presented to December Cabinet. During 2008/9 we provided land worth £800,000 for schemes that will deliver 47 new affordable homes, and those schemes are now either complete or building is underway.

We have recently had further good news about more than £4 million of external investment in affordable housing at Hunts Grove.

Schemes in Stroud, Easington and Dursley will add to this supply of affordable housing.

Additionally in the next financial year we continue to invest £350,000 funding for the Stroud Homebuy Scheme, which should give around 8 households help to purchase a home on the open market .

I have already spoken about the District’s young people and their future. We are proposing to fund the Hear by Rights Officer on a permanent basis, something that has the support of the Youth Council. This will help make sure we continue to listen to their needs and provide the right opportunities and services.

Finally, in 2010 we expect will see some important progress on our regeneration schemes. The Dursley supermarket and the town centre paving scheme should be completed. We are also keen to work with Cam Parish Council to see the Chapel Street site developed. We plan to invest £4.8 million in housing across the District, much of it helping our tenants deal with fuel poverty to and provide decent homes. And of course there is the canal regeneration which will see important sections of the £30 million pound project completed for all to see and create jobs and training opportunities as well as enable volunteers to make their important contributions.

Overall, we are managing to invest in what the District needs while still keeping the council tax increase to less than 2%, a figure that is likely to be the lowest council tax increase in Gloucestershire.