Council set to approve £10.8m cuts

Children's centres, roads, libraries and care homes face funding cuts

WEST Berkshire Council is set to press ahead with £10.8m worth of cuts that will see children’s centres and care homes closed and school transport funding scrapped.

At a meeting of its executive next week, the council is expected to approve the cuts – £4.6m of which will come from public services. But that is just the first phase of the cuts and there is worse to come.

The council has been told it could have to save another £8.1m on top of the £10.8m already announced.

In total, 38 different cuts are set to be voted through as part of the first phase, which includes cutting funding for disabled children and people with mental health issues.

Four rural bus services are likely to be terminated and several more reduced as the council looks to slash its public transport budget by almost 25 per cent.

If voted through, the £10.8m worth of savings will also see car-parking charges increase in Newbury, Thatcham, Theale and Pangbourne.

Four children’s centres are set to close – at South Newbury, Thatcham (Lower Way), East Downlands, and Calcot – so the council can save £300,000.

The council is planning to “redesign” the service and instead of children’s centres, is looking to create new ‘Family and Wellbeing Delivery Areas’ for youngsters up to 19 years old.

Libraries haven’t escaped unscathed either – the council is proposing to merge Burghfield and Mortimer libraries and reduce the number of mobile libraries.

The cuts include slashing funding for short breaks for disabled children, which will affect eight charities including West Berkshire Mencap, who plan to demonstrate at next week’s meeting.

More than £500,000 is proposed to be cut from the roads maintenance budget which will see less spent on gully emptying, road patching and winter gritting.

Among the recommended cuts put forward next week is the removal or substantial reduction of bus provision for bus routes to schools that are deemed to have an acceptable walking route as an alternative.

If approved the council would reduce free transport provision for mainstream pupils to the statutory minimum.

Five routes earmarked for closure affect Aldermaston Primary School, Kennet School, Shefford Primary School, Chieveley Primary School and the Willink School.

Other proposals include scrapping the council subsidy for both the fare-payer scheme for bus users and the discretionary transport fund for primary school children.

A group of concerned parents of Willink School children set up a campaign group after it was revealed that one of the route closure proposals would force more than 230 schoolchildren to walk through unlit woodland and along 60mph roads without footpaths.

The £10.8m cuts also include passing on the responsibility of grit bins, grass cutting, public toilets and CCTV to town and parish councils.

However, nine services have been saved from the chop after the Government confirmed that the council’s public health grant would be protected for another two years.

These are: Alana House, Friends in Need, Healthy Eating in Children, NEET, Physical Activity in Adults, Reduction to Healthy Eating in Children Programme, Relate, Shopmobility, Special Needs Advice and Counselling Support.

Newbury Labour Party has called the cuts short-sighted, while the council’s opposition leader, Alan Macro (Lib Dem, Theale), said it was “hitting the district’s most vulnerable the hardest”.

The full details of how much more the council it will need to save will be revealed next week, but it has warned it could have to increase council tax by four per cent and cut yet more services.