News / bristol city council
Bristol faces bankruptcy if cuts not made
From the closure of three museums to reducing how often household waste is collected, sweeping cuts will have to be made in order to save £52m from council coffers over the next five years.
The closure of Blaise Museum, the Georgian House and the Red Lodge is estimated to save the council £132,000 by 2030.
The full set of potential options include doing more to collect council debts, increasing community meals charges, charging for parking on the Downs, and reducing spending on libraries and cultural funding.
One of the most dramatic savings – almost £3.5m by 2027 – could come from changes to the council tax reduction scheme; while almost £7m could be raised over the next five years by pooling business rates with other local authorities.
They are just some of the proposals which, under the new committee system, councillors from all parties at City Hall will now be tasked with deciding what to proceed with in order to close Bristol’s gaping financial gap.
Council leader Tony Dyer warned that Bristol City Council will face bankruptcy if the cuts are not made, stressing that “it will not be an easy budget to set” but it will be “empowering both elected members and staff to take responsibility for spending decisions”.
Dyer said: “This will not be a perfect or painless process. With the challenges we face it was never going to be.
“We will be doing our best to be careful with our finances, to make decisions that support and protect the most vulnerable people, to listen to all views and work together on our services, and to invest in a city which needs a lot of human and environmental resilience to face its challenges and make the most of its opportunities.”
The proposals will first be reviewed by the cross-party finance sub-committee before a final draft budget is produced and the final version needing to be approved at full council.
Councillors from all political persuasions are now responsible for setting the budget under Bristol’s new committee system – photo: Rob Browne
Dyer said that closing the funding gap “needs to start straight away”.
He said: “In some areas we are still playing catch-up because other local authorities have already made decisions years ago that we are only facing up to now.
“There is no doubt that it means difficult choices, more taxes and charges, and we recognise that the money we raise does not go as far as it once did.
“We don’t like that any more than local taxpayers do, but it is the reality we must contend with.
“We need to take a bigger, bolder and more politically courageous approach to our budget.
“We cannot keep salami-slicing public services, nor can we pretend that words like ‘efficiency’ and ‘productivity’ hold all the answers.
“These approaches have been tried before. Too often the savings haven’t been made, the can has been kicked down the road and we have overspent our budget.
“Many of the savings options published today recognise this – reflecting a need for comprehensive changes to the way the council works internally, with residents and communities, and with partners to deliver its services.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
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