The Reform administration has just passed a £1.5bn budget that actually respects working people.
We capped the council tax rise at a naked minimal 1.99% and absolutely protected the council’s reserves. This has been achieved for the primary time in 15 years.
Enter the Liberal Democrats, supported by Labour. When we lastly noticed their top-secret masterstrokes, it was pure comedy.
First, extra photo voltaic panels! Bad timing to strive & promote it (once more) in the midst of winter, with photo voltaic yields at document lows. Net zero is cancelled on this county. We do, in fact, have a social care emergency to fund, not a local weather cult to appease.
Next, a £10k fund for every councillor, sourced from native community sources, to “fix roads”. A pleasant little slush fund to do half a job, “bypassing” the transport crew. As our highways lead, Cllr McGuinness identified, a median pothole restore scheme prices £40k. We repair roads based mostly on information and proof, not parish-pump self-importance initiatives. A 1/4 restore will not work on our watch.
Our budget delivers £264m in new funding: 200 SEN locations at a brand new state-of-the-art college, correct street repairs and faculty upkeep. That is what precise governing seems like.
Then, re-debates of beforehand misplaced debates kicked in and cries about the price of parking permits and backyard waste collections.
Our reply is easy, widespread sense- providers should pay for themselves. Why ought to a working individual with out a backyard pay to filter another person’s weeds?
Why ought to somebody with out a automobile subsidise your parking allow? Why ought to Chester-le-Street residents pay Peterlee Town Council to spend extra on wages than they offer again to their very own residents?
They confuse us with the get together of U-turns. We are the get together of low taxes.
So, what did the Lib Dems do & Labour do? They agreed with 99.98% of the budget. But as a result of we rejected their 0.02% of performative nonsense, they threw their toys out of the pram and voted towards the whole factor.
No different budget. I anticipated higher.
