Spending axe is out

UCKFIELD town councillors have started looking at ways of hacking spending proposals for next year.

The current draft budget would increase the town s element of the council tax by 38.1 per cent - an increase for the average householder of more than 30 a year.

Councillors originally planned to hold a working party meeting on Tuesday behind closed doors, excluding press and public, but on the morning of the meeting town mayor Cllr Barrie Murray invited the Sussex Express to attend.

At the meeting town clerk Ashley Serpis stressed it was never the intention of the working party to fix the town s precept - request for funds through the council tax - in private. Decisions on the budget would be made by the council s committees and a meeting of the full council on January 22.

The working party looked at figures from each of the council s committees singling out items of expenditure which the committees could consider cutting.

It was suggested that 17,500 earmarked by the environment committee for a civic warden be removed and that 1,600 set aside for new equipment for groundsmen be transferred to the facilities committee budget.

The environment committee met immediately after the working party and agreed to alter its budget.

A budget summary for 2002-2003 presented to the working party showed that Band D on the council tax scale, which represents an average house, attracted an 83.12 bill as the town council element of the tax. Without cuts that element would rise to 114.79.

The working party identified a possible 48,100 reduction in the facilities committee budget which included removing 30,000 designated for a football project at Harlands Farm, returning 25,000 of that sum to the council s reserves, and setting aside the remaining 5,000 for possible use on the provision of new BMX and skate facilities.

A 6,500 sum allocated towards remedial works to the Victoria Ground football pitch was deleted as was 5,000 for floodlighting and fencing.

The policy and resources committee was seeking the lions share of the budget with an expenditure of 354,500 proposed for 2002/3. The working party suggested 5,000 carried forward from 2001/2 for a flood alleviation group could be deleted.

A suggested casualty though was a plan to replace the revolving door with automatic doors at the Civic Centre and move the entrance to allow more restaurant space. That was put on hold for a year.

In 2001/2 the council s net budget requirement was 478,875 but 40,983 was taken from reserves to cushion the impact on the council tax. The initial expenditure for 2002/3 before cuts was 607,649 and so far the suggested cuts of 72,200 take that figure down to 535,449. Mr Serpis warned against taking funds from reserves again this year to bring down the bill and Cllr Ian Nottage warned that more needed to be taken out of the budget or else the people of Uckfield would still face a substantial rise in council tax.