York Liberal Democrats

CLLR ANN REID SPEECH TO BUDGET COUNCIL 26TH FEB 2009

Lord Mayor,

What an interesting selection of random changes to the Neighbourhood Services Directorate, none of which were in Labour's pre-budget publicity.

On one hand Labour propose to reinstate a SEO post which has been vacant for over 6 months and where reorganisation has taken place to maintain the service. On the other hand the proposal to cut the Environment Enforcement team will have a major effect on our ability to tackle fly tipping, littering and refuse collection problems as well as making 2 people redundant. This small team carries out a wide range of enforcement and education work and since July 2007 this has included 40 fly posting investigations resolved, 770 incidents of fly tipping investigated - resulting in 1000 warning letters and 2 formal cautions as well as action taken over 700 incidents of graffiti on private land.. Loss of this team would almost certainly result in a failure to met our statutory obligation under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Reducing the use of the chewing gum removal machine would reduce standards of cleanliness and under Labours proposals there would be no one to issue fines to those who did drop chewing gum - a double whammy and a reduction that Labour strongly opposed in previous years.

Other members might not realise that we are in the middle of a toilet review and work has been undertaken to identify usage of the current facilities that we provide. In the last report to Emap everyone was very surprised to find that the most well used public loos were - Exhibition Square. Calling them Bootham Bar in this budget amendment doesn't disguise the fact that the best used loos are the very ones that Labour want to close. Where is the logic in that, especially to make such a decision in advance of the reviews final recommendations. Where will those 1100 users each day go to go?

I now realise why abolishing Emaps will have no effect on Labour. This amendment shows that they don't absorb the information that Officers provide in that forum. We have been hearing all year of the problems with trade waste. We have not hit this years targets for a number of reasons:- businesses have closed, some have reduced the number of collections they have and national businesses negotiate deals with national operators. Increasing trade waste fees by a further 2% will create a deficit before we even start the year.

Advertising on litter bins has been proposed before and has been successful in other towns and cities. We have been unable to achieve this as proposals have always been blocked by the conservation groups. There is no indication that they have changed their views and I would therefore consider this an unachievable target. Adverts on lamp posts could also fall foul of planning regulations and we do currently make limited use of them for our own promotions. All our roundabouts are currently sponsored and the money ploughed back into their maintenance. Additional income of £25k is probably unachievable.

Given some of the criticism from Cllr King over the bin replacement budget this year I was therefore surprised to see a halving of the bin replacement budget. We have overspent for the last two years and the global prices of bins is rising so I am not sure which residents Cllr King would deny a replacement bin too.

Combining parking cashiers with City Finance would only produce a saving by loosing a post. But in practice the cashiers are part of the Parking Admin team, rotating jobs between the front and back office and doing more than just taking the money. Putting a team member in isolation in City Finance would make managing the section more problematic, lose expertise and create a difficulty for Saturday morning opening.

Of the rest, the reduction in the bridge inspection budget means extending the period between inspections and therefore extending the risk and although you are putting a small amount of extra money into Community Centres you have completely failed to recognise that Chapelfields now has a centre funded from the Neighbourhoods budget. As far as the Noise Patrol Service is concerned, Council will be pleased to know that Safer York are supporting the shortfall and therefore the current service will be retained. Luckily we are not relying on this amendment for the funding because that shortfall is £43k and not £24k as outlined so Labour would still be £19k short.

I really do not feel that there is anything in this part of the Labour budget amendment worthy of support and I will therefore be voting against.