Friday, 28 February 2020

Free Bulky Household Items collection announced in Pendle Council budget

Pendle Borough Council has announced its budget for 2020/21 will include the removal of charges to collect Bulky Household Items.

The proposal was put forward, as an amendment to the budget, by Cllr N.Ahmed, Leader of the Conservative Party, as part of an alternative budget to that proposed by the Liberal Democrat and Labour alliance.

Charges for removal of Bulky Household Items was brought in by the Conservatives last year, when they had control of the Council. 

Other agreed proposals include:

  • Scrap the wheelie bin replacement charge (from March 1, 2020)
  • £30k for planting 500k trees with the Ribble Rivers Trust
  • £300k in savings
  • Accept a new repayment scheme from Pendle Leisure Trust (PLT), grant increase of £176k to £1.442m
  • No increase in cemetery charges
  • £50k for the Community Climate Action Schemes, overseen by the P&R Committee after advice from the Climate Emergency Group
  • £50k to the Disabled Facility Grant for grants over the £30k limit
  • Look to provide a small fund for free bus travel for under 25s across Pendle (after consulting with LCC)

Borough Council Tax will increase by 1.99%

This will make the average bill £180.41 p.a. or £3.30 p/w
This is an increase of £3.32 p.a. or £0.07p p/w


Liberal Democrat Leader, David Whipp, explained the breakdown of where the money goes:

He said, although PBC collects the money, most of it goes to Lancashire County Council, but Pendle Council gets the brunt of the blame.

For every £1 collected by Pendle Borough Council:
  • 68p to Lancashire County Council
  • 13p to Pendle Borough Council
  • 10p to Police
  • 4p to Fire Service
  • 5p to Town/Parish Council


The Conservative alternative budget, that was rejected, included:
  • Push for bigger savings than the 3% proposed
  • Reject increase of cemetery charges
  • Reject the reduction of manual and mechanical road sweeper funding
  • Replace wheelie bins for free
  • Remove charges for Bulky Household Items
  • Provide an extra £125k for manual sweeping to keep Pendle clean
  • Councillors' grant of £2k each for chosen projects
  • £50k environment enhancement fund, promoting the new rules regarding District Enforcement as part of an education awareness scheme, special flytipping projects, annual removal of chewing gum and other community projects
  • PLT support the additional grant, but stated "further work needed to be done" to make PLT reduce costs

Other comments made at the meeting:
  • Cllr Turner (Con) said PLT had returned a £10 profit by "maniuplating their reserves"
    • Said the Trust asked for £300k but accepted £176k
    • Called for a review of PLT to ensure value for money
  • All parties thanked the All-Party Budget Working Group and noted the two budgets were not too dissimilar 
  • Conservatives said reducing the Area Committees to 3, would save £15k
  • Cllr David Whipp supports County Councillor Azhar Ali's call for a public inquiry into PEARL - "to show how good it is"
    • Cllr Jonathan Nixon (Con) says he works for Barnfield and was involved in the tendering process to work the PBC, and he will talk to anyone about it and defend the collaboration

Voting:
All voted in Favour of the budget except, Cllr Victoria Fletcher (Con)