This week Rother District Council (RDC) launch another consultation on further cuts to Rother’s services.
‘Following the continued loss of government funding and escalating costs, Rother District Council must find £3.2 million of extra income and savings in order to balance its budget.’ RDC said.
In answering the question, ‘Why have cost gone up’, Rother said, ‘Our new waste collection and street cleaning contract is going to cost a lot more than expected, around £2m more. With the collapse of the markets for waste plastic and paper we have lost substantial income and our contractor’s costs have also gone up.’
In addition Rother said, ‘Our costs of providing emergency and temporary homes has increased due to a substantial increase in the number of homeless people and families in our district coming to the Council for help.’
RDC have confirmed that next year they will use £2.192 million from from reserves to help fill the gap between their income and their expenditure. Therefore Rother say they need to make more savings and raise their income over the next four years in order to gradually reduce the amount they need to take from their reserves to balance the budget.
As part of their consultation, Rother have outlined the options of either further cutting the services it provides or increasing their portion of the Council Tax by £5 per year.
Get more information, and to have your say about services such as bin collection, recycling and street cleaning click here. This consultation closes on 31 January 2020.
Image Credits: Rye News library .
Ugh. No more self-flagellation. Why are we all just allowing this to carry on? It’s completely unnecessary, and cruel. Happily there’s an election next week, and perhaps a glimmer of a chance to change things.
Unfortunately the link to the consultation is a ‘404’ dead link.
I get rather irritated when I read of further cuts being made to the services provided by Rother District Council, so I thought I would use the ‘Ask the Leader’ facility available on the RDC website. To say that the reply astounded me is an understatement. Comparing the spend on just one of the RDC supported facilities in Bexhill with the measley crumb spread on tourism in the rest of the district is nothing short of insulting. Read the question and reply below, then judge for yourself.
Q. What was the total of the grant payable by RDC to the de la Warr pavilion in the 2019/2020 budget? How much was the grant paid to the Rye tourist information centre in the 2019/2020 budget, and what will it be in the 2020/2021 budget? (03/12/2019)
A. The total grant payment in 2019/20 will have been £683,000. £560,500 has already been paid with the last instalment of £122,500 payable in the last quarter. The total grant this year has been increased by £193,000 compared to the 2018/19 year to meet their arrears of employer pension contributions due to the East Sussex Pension Fund for the period to 31 March 2019.
Rother District Council no longer provides direct financial support for Tourist Information Centres. We do however provide a Tourist Information Point in Rye for which we supply leaflets advertising events and local tourist attractions through our contract with the ‘Brochure Connect’ distribution service. This is a service that operates throughout the district and costs the Council £18,000/annum.
I hope this provides the answers to your questions. (06/12/2019)
Last week the Rother Cabinet signed up to £350,000 to rebuild the water fountain feature outside the De La Warr Pavilion that was completed in 2012 as part of a multi-million regeneration project for Bexhill, and rapidly proved a damp squib, giving up the ghost a year ago. It lasted just seven years. So, on this basis, the replacement feature (just yards from the vast, sustainable and entirely free water feature that is the sea) can be expected to cost Rother council taxpayers £50k a year for the next seven years! Seems they’ve got plenty of (our) cash to pour down the drains in Bexhill!