Avril Davies

2010-11 has been an interesting year of change.  The County Council put a lot of activity on hold not only in the time running up to the general election, but for several months afterwards until it was sure of the direction of change. It took the opportunity of that time to attempt to see where it could remove £90M from its budget over 3 years.

The Government did slash public spending in some areas, while spending more in others. Local Government appeared to have taken a very big hit, particularly this year, with what is described as 'front loaded' cuts, meaning more has had to come out of the budget this year than in the next two.


In the event, Bucks County Council had a far better settlement than expected. It is partly cushioned by the fact that 80% of its budget is already funded by Council tax, so was not affected, and only 20% is funded by the Revenue Support Grant.  The revenue support grant was cut by less than 1% overall, and by not increasing council tax the County was paid around £5m extra by the government. The County also received about £36m capital grant which was totally unexpected, very welcome, and much needed.


The reason the County has had still to make about £20M cuts is that inflation has to be taken into account, so rising costs have not been met, and specific funding grants for specific services and projects have been taken away, and merged in to the overall grant.

 There will be an effect on front line services, disproportionately in social care, learning disability and mental health. But the most obvious one locally is the change to the rural library service, where 14 local libraries, including Ivinghoe, where 50% of the funding is being withdrawn, and they are being asked to become Community Libraries, so that the service can be delivered in a different way.


As a Lib Dem Group we opposed the budget on the grounds of the choice to spend £9Mpa plus £30M capital on EFW plant at Calvert. Our alternative would have been to invest in more waste reduction and recycling and share EFW facilities on the County borders. I called it Buckinghamshire’s ‘Trident’ meaning that it was the most expensive budget item, with other possible alternatives, but was being driven along by a political agenda.


We chose, as examples for alternative investment of some of the money earmarked for waste; school improvement to close the achievement gap which is very noticeable in Bucks; no further increases in charges for social care, because that can lead to bigger bills later on as people do without support; and restoring bus subsidies, as these were decided on with no research. It was then established that nearly all users of subsidized evening and weekend services are using he buses for work, or other economic activity, such as shopping or leisure, or for caring for relatives in hospital or at home.

Locally we have been affected by the library issue. In Ivinghoe negotiations are going forward for the Town Hall trustees to look after the library, which is in the same building. The Trustees, with the friends of Ivinghoe Library, are negotiating a ‘service level agreement’ or equivalent with BCC for staff, books, and IT. Savings will be made through being able to pay for overheads independently, being a charity, and, hopefully, keeping the rent from the post office as income. They will need to generate income through grant applications, and the use of volunteers. The Friends and Trustees will be able to run the library independently.

The other very big issue exercising the Count Council has been the High Speed Rail proposals, HS2.  The intense opposition from the communities along the preferred route, through Great Missenden and Wendover led to the County Council opposing the preferred route, but advocating a West Coast main line alternative.  This option had been ruled out by the government, and those of us living with the line know how impractical and disruptive this would be, and highly unlikely to be implemented. However I have made it more than clear that while opposing the preferred route on the grounds of the business case and the effect on the Chilterns AONB, the County's position of supporting the west coast main line undermines their arguments, as if there is no business case there is no business case for the line anywhere. The west coast main line also runs through the Chilterns AONB - or didn't they know? I have not voted for any of the proposals to put money in to a fighting fund against HS2 because of the position on the West Coast main line.

Stop press. On Thursday 22nd April the County Council formally dropped their West Coast Main Line position.

My fellow county councilors who co-chair the GBWI Local Area Forum with me I think that the Forum has been very successful in bringing people together to share local concerns and common interests, and in putting funding in to local priorities. - Footpaths – Cheddington, Edlesborough, Aston Abbots, Ivinghoe; GBWI pilot FQP (see below); Youth activities

The Freight Quality Partnership to tackle the inappropriate use of country lanes by HGVs. An inaugural meeting was well attended by parishes from the three county divisions involved, Great Brickhill, Wing and Ivinghoe, as all have these problems. The freight industry also attended, as did the police, county and district councils. The working party and second full meeting has already made considerable progress towards collecting traffic information, contacting freight operators, getting full support of the County and District Councils, and setting up a website.

‘Objective

This Freight Quality Partnership aims to work collaboratively with relevant stakeholders to direct heavy goods traffic to roads of most suitable use and to ensure that Buckinghamshire’s roads provide freight transport operators with the most efficient and user friendly routes through the county

Outcome
This Freight Quality Partnership believes that if the objective can be achieved the outcome of the work undertaken by and on behalf of the group will enable the County to get traffic flowing in a way that benefits the economy and the environment’