Green Party to present alternative spending plans to Labour at crunch South Tyneside Council budget meeting

Every year, the local authority holds a budget meeting to set out spending plans and council tax levels for the following financial year.

The council’s majority Labour Group has already revealed their proposals for 2024/25 which include around £7 million of savings and a council tax rise of 4.95 per cent to help fund council services.

Borough bosses have maintained key services will be protected, and that they’re still committed to regenerating the borough and its assets and driving investment and jobs.

Budget proposals include a rise in car parking charges in parts of South Shields, a large investment to replace flooring at The Word and a range of other projects.

This includes improving council housing and boosting active travel along the borough’s coast road, expanding Mortimer Community College, upgrading the council’s vehicle fleet, tackling ‘untidy sites’, investment into the International Advanced Manufacturing Park and more.

Following recent local elections, South Tyneside Council’s political make-up has changed, with the Green Party recently becoming the official opposition.

At a meeting this week, the borough’s Green Group will submit an alternative to Labour’s budget for the first time which is expected to be debated and put to the vote.

The Green Party states the budget will prioritise “sustainability, community safety, and fiscal responsibility” and has identified £417,000 of revenue savings through “strategic adjustments”.

This includes freezing town centre car parking tariffs by increasing car parking tariffs at the South Shields foreshore and reducing the number of council newsletter publications.

The main bulk of the proposed revenue savings would come from the removal of a further 10 vacant council posts, on top of the 60 proposed by the council’s Labour leaders, to save £400,000.

The Green Group’s revenue amendments aim to use the majority of additional savings to make “revenue investments” into key areas.

This includes the creation of an additional £50,000 ‘ecological emergency plan implementation’ job within the council and a £260,000 uplift in street cleaning investment, with the remainder of savings helping to reduce the proposed 2024/25 council tax increase.

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Amendments to Labour’s capital proposals would include combating anti-social behaviour with an additional investment of £150,000 into CCTV cameras at hotspots, as well as scrapping the £60,000 plan for ‘gateway roundabouts’ and delaying the £400,000 re-flooring of The Word.

Green Party officials say the alternative budget would see a £310,000 reduction in net capital spending compared to the Labour budget, and this reduction equates to around £20,000 savings per year in debt charges.

The Green Group also says the alternative budget would achieve an overall underspend of £127,000 compared to the Labour budget, and would mean a reduced increase in council tax for residents, from 4.95 per cent to 4.77 per cnet.

Councillor David Francis, leader of the council’s Green Group, said: “Our council budget aims to strike a balance between fiscal responsibility and investment in initiatives that matter most to our community.

“This budget reflects our commitment to working towards our environmental and community safety goals.”

Both Labour and Green Party proposals will be presented at the annual budget meeting at South Shields Town Hall on Thursday, February 22, 2024.

The meeting will start from 6pm and will be available to watch live via South Tyneside Council’s YouTube channel.