Last week, the budget meeting of Woking Borough Council agreed a 3% increase on Council Tax for 2023/4 and a set of service cuts unprecedented in recent times. The Liberal Democrat group spent a great deal of time choreographing a political spectacle to distance themselves from the decisions that they are making and to place blame elsewhere. I think we all expected that.
A number of people have been in touch with me asking what I think about the claims the Lib Dems are making of insolvency and whether the fault lies with previous Conservative administrations. They are also asking why I as Leader did not do what the Lib Dems are doing now.
To that I have to ask: what *are* the Lib Dems doing now?
We have seen a tremendous amount of emotional language, not just last week but the for the past few years. The Lib Dems, whose leader and deputy leader voted for Victoria Square and Sheerwater, which between them account for more than £1.25bn of the borrowing, have spent a long time generating outrage about the borrowing figure. We saw claims that £47,000 bills would be coming through the door of every household in Woking. Not true, of course.
The leader of the council promised to “tackle the debt”. But the fact remains they are doing no such thing. Whilst there have been some changes around the edges to Thameswey governance, much of which was in the programme while I was still leader, there have been no substantial changes. The debt figure has gone up, not down - and nothing is being suggested to lower the figure, nor to lower the amount of money needed to service the borrowing costs. They are also stuck on the question of how to increase council income, suggestions of selling off assets just amount to a fire-sale.
The Lib Dems are not tackling the debt - what they are trying to do is make everyone feel better about it, as if Conservative borrowing was bad but Lib Dem debt is okay. They have borrowed over £100m during the last nine months alone.
If you look at the statements coming from Lib Dem councillors, they are all about feeling, not doing. About a “sombre” meeting, trying to emote about Conservative “contrition” or “denial” and parroting the line of “it’s a start” and that it will be a very long process to fix things. How convenient – and what a contrast to the leader’s determined “tackling the debt” prior to winning the local elections on that promise.
The previous Conservative administration’s policy of borrowing to invest in social and economic infrastructure was major investment in the town and required major borrowing. Was it too ambitious for a borough of Woking’s size? That’s debatable and soon the government will state its opinion. But what is certain is that Woking’s current financial problems are not due to costs of borrowing as they are fixed but due to reductions in income from commercial rents falling, lack of car park take-up and rising energy costs.
So, whether Woking was or was not over-ambitious, there is no direct correlation between that question and the eye-watering cuts being made by the new Lib Dem administration. The budget that was agreed does nothing to address the debt issue, nor to get the council back to a stable position as my 2022/23 budget attempted to do.
That is why I voted against it; and will always vote against budgets that are not in the interests of Woking.
