Borough Executive Faces Stark Outline of Pandemic’s Financial Toll

Published on: 28 Oct, 2020
Updated on: 29 Oct, 2020

Borough council leader Joss Bigmore last night (October 27) gave his Executive a brief analysis of their financial position and the amount of support from Westminster, including the tranche of £100,000 announced last week.

“For the full year, we estimate the pandemic will have caused £4.5 million in extra expenditure, looking after the homeless, buying PPE and subsidising our leisure centres being the principle contributors,” he said.

Cllr Joss Bigmore

“We estimate lower incomes of £8.2 million which, in the most part, is loss of parking income, but also represents lower income from our sports and community facilities. So, the total impact to the council’s budget is £12.7 million.

“So far, we have received a total of £1.9 million from central government, so [we face] a shortfall of £10.8 million. We expect to receive a further £5 million through the sales, fees and charges scheme whereby we are compensated for about 70% of some of our revenues, [but] our claims are still being assessed.

“In the best possible scenario, we will have to fund £5.8 million from our reserves. Now, I am not ungrateful for the support from central government, it is very welcome.

“But I do think we need a sense of perspective that this £100,000 is not a game-changer, it’s loose change compared to the scale of financial issues borough and district authorities face all over the country.

“We are also in the position of not being able to borrow money to balance our budget as
Westminster can. GBC must set a balanced budget.

“Next year, we forecast a gap of nearly £3 million which means further inroads into our increasingly scarce reserves, cuts to some of the services we provide, or projects to deliver higher revenues from our activities.

“Shortly, we will be starting the formal budget process and that will involve consultation with residents to properly inform us what the community thinks is important when we are making difficult decisions about our future service provision.”

Responses to Borough Executive Faces Stark Outline of Pandemic’s Financial Toll

Caroline Perkins Reply

October 29, 2020 at 3:10 pm

The borough council needs £3 million, is that all?

Seems rich, coming from a council that considered £5.1 million for a footbridge to the (now redundant) cinema a good deal (or was that another administration?).

Why not cancel this ridiculous idea, refund monies that should never have been accepted, and use the £3m left over?
- Joss Bigmore Reply
  
  October 29, 2020 at 4:26 pm
  
  Unfortunately, the replacement Walnut Footbridge is considered “Capital Expenditure” and any potential savings can’t be used to fund our day to day service provision. The council must generate in income what it spends on services, we can’t use capital receipts (ie selling assets) nor can we borrow. These are rules set by Westminster and we have to follow them.
  
  Joss Bigmore is the leader of Guildford Borough Council and a R4GV councillor for Christchurch.
Jules Cranwell Reply

October 30, 2020 at 11:03 am

GBC would be in much better financial shape if the previous Tory administration had not blown so much of our hard-earned on failed vanity projects, such as the disastrous “Village”. They also blew large sums on unneeded consultants.