Council Tax hikes, budgets approved
by PAUL MCLAUGHLIN
Hastings Borough Council (HBC) agreed to raise the local council tax by the maximum amount allowed without holding a local referendum at a fiery meeting of the full council at Muriel Matters House last Wednesday (15 February). The proposed 2.99% increase in council tax was part of a series of controversial measures aimed at securing the Council’s 2023-24 annual budget.
The Council is currently run by a minority Labour administration after last year’s post-election cooperation alliance with the Greens was ended in the autumn. The vote on the annual budget was, therefore, the first major test of the Labour group’s authority; and Council Leader Paul Barnett will be pleased with the outcome despite having to take “some very difficult funding decisions”.
The budget proposed savings of more than £1.4 million with a further £2.5 million drawn down from council reserves.
Capital spending
A key plank of Labour’s budget is its capital expenditure plans. The spiralling costs of providing temporary accommodation for homeless households in recent years has seen the council adopt a Housing Acquisition Programme which will see it acquire up to 50 properties to provide temporary housing for local residents who need somewhere safe and stable to live. The net cost of providing temporary accommodation just two years ago was £731,706; this figure is set to increase to £3,892,758 in 2023-24. Officers have advised that such increases are unsustainable and, if left unchecked, threatened HBC’s financial stability.
The acquisition programme, which was passed by the Council the previous week, will see a net spend of £11.866m over the coming years of which £5.933m is expected to be spent in 2023-24. The redevelopment of the Cornwallis Street car park for a hotel will cost the council an additional £8.4 million over the next year. Labour is confident, however, that the new 84-bedroom hotel, which will be let to Premier Inn, will help regenerate the town centre, as well as providing much needed overnight accommodation, and secure new jobs in the area.
Simon Willis, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Equalities, said that other savings would be made following the Council’s Review and Reduce Programme, which would see some voluntary staff redundancies and the deletion of vacant posts from the council’s budgets. Council support for the Hastings Contemporary art gallery and the Hastings Museum will also be cut and there will be additional savings from cuts to the maintenance of decorative lights and from ending support for the annual town crier’s competition.
The Hastings Museum has recently secured funding of £450,000 over the next three years from Arts Council England’s National Portfolio.
The spending plans will also see substantial cuts to the tourism marketing budget. This will include a saving of up to £15,000 from closing the tourist information centre at Sussex Coast College and £50,000 from withdrawing from the 1066 Country tourism campaign.
Greens put climate first
In its original budget plans, Labour had also set out a proposed £5,000 cut to the Community Safety budget, but this was removed following talks with the Green Party. Claire Carr, the party’s lead on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, was critical of the proposal, arguing that it was a “false economy”. She said that, with “a 7% rise in crime over the last year and sexual offences at their highest rate ever, now is not the time to be cutting this area of the budget.”
Julia Hilton, the leader of the Greens, said her party had tabled 21 “radical and imaginative” amendments to tackle the budget crisis and claimed that all had been accepted by the Labour administration. She was particularly pleased at those that “put climate change front and centre”. However, her party would not vote to approve the budget as “we want to be clear that Greens are not willing to share responsibility for the cuts it would deliver, which come after a decade of Labour administrations failing to make sufficiently radical and imaginative decisions to tackle the crisis caused by years of cuts to council funding by central government”.
The Conservatives voted against the budget. Group leader Andy Patmore said the proposals were “not radical enough”. He warned that there was now a very real danger that the council may not be able to balance its budget and would be issued with a Section 114 Notice by the Government to avoid becoming bankrupt. (Under this section of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the council would find itself disentitled to incur any new expenditure except for safeguarding of vulnerable people and provision of statutory services).
Cllr Patmore was scathing of the plans to cut the tourism marketing budget, arguing that these would harm the council’s reputation and threaten the town’s tourism income. He also dismissed Labour’s hotel-building project as unaffordable.
However, Labour councillors cheered Maya Evans, the Deputy Leader of the Council and Chair of the Housing and Community Development Committee, when she launched a blistering attack on the Conservative Government’s record of cuts to local government funding over the last 13 years. She said government ministers were directly to blame for the budget crisis in Hastings and in local authorities across the country.
Since 2013, HBC’s government grant had been cut from £15 million to £1.5 million; this year alone, the cut was 10%. In stark contrast, the government had spent around £15 billion on unused or unusable PPE since 2020.
The council’s spending plans were approved by 13 Labour votes in favour with 10 Conservatives against. The five Green councillors abstained. As a result, local council taxpayers will see the HBC element of their bills increase by £8.42 next year on an average band D property.
On the other hand East Sussex County Council has also agreed a combined 4.99% rise in its council tax element plus adult social care precept for next year (see adjacent column), East Sussex Fire Authority has voted for a 5% increase, and the Sussex Police and Crime Panel has agreed a 7% increase. Composite council tax bills on an average band D property will thus rise altogether by over £60 for the year.
Corporate plan: greens abstain
Councillors had begun their evening with a discussion on proposals to update HBC’s Corporate Plan. Paul Barnett said the plan had identified two key priorities for the Council over the coming year. These were tackling the housing crisis and addressing the climate emergency. He said his group had accepted a number of amendments to the original plan in a spirit of cooperation with other parties. These included the creation of a levy on car parking charges to fund active travel schemes and requiring developers to carry whole life-cycle carbon assessments on their buildings.
The new Corporate Plan was adopted by the council with 14 Labour votes in favour, 10 Conservatives against and the five Greens all abstaining.
County council tax hike
East Sussex County Council, which has a built-in Conservative majority, has approved its 2023/24 budget, which includes payment for road upkeep and support for vulnerable adults and children. It will not entail any new spending cuts. However, what it refers to as “a significant increase in service demand”, as well as rising costs, will mean a hike in tax bills by 2.99% plus a 2% increase for adult social care.
The full Council also approved a capital programme which includes investment in road improvements, school places and SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) provision, as well as further supporting the council’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint from its operations.
Cllr Nick Bennett, deputy leader and lead member for resources and climate change, said: “We know that some residents are finding it difficult to make ends meet and asking people to pay more is never a decision we take lightly, but it is more important than ever that the services the public are increasingly relying upon are safeguarded.”
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