South Tyneside Council: Fees for leisure, school meals, and markets to increase

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Cost of leisure membership, school meals, burial and cremation and market fees set to rise under council 'fees and charges' review.

Senior councillors have agreed a major overhaul of fees and charges in South Tyneside, with the cost of leisure membership, school meals and school milk,  market fees and cremations and burials, set to increase.

Every year, South Tyneside Council reviews its fees and charges to ensure that services are accessible whilst recovering some rising costs.

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The local authority said that keeping fees among some of the lowest in the region has, over time, created extra financial pressures for the council amidst the rising cost of fuel, food, energy, and staffing.

Town hall bosses say they’re working to target support at residents and parts of the borough that need it the most to help reduce inequalities and ‘make things fairer’.

Revised fees and charges were agreed by South Tyneside Council’s Labour cabinet on Wednesday (October 30, 2024) during a cabinet meeting, which was held in private due to commercial sensitivity.

The council has confirmed the main changes to its fees and charges will include rises in some service areas but stressed areas such as parking and allotment fees will remain unchanged.

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Changes to fees and charges will apply to a two year period over 2024/25 and 2025/26, with some changes to fees applying from November 1, 2024, and others coming in next year.

South Shields Town Hall.South Shields Town Hall.
South Shields Town Hall. | Other 3rd Party

Despite rising costs of running some services, such as school meals and school milk, the council has worked to retain subsidies in as many areas as possible.

Councillor Jane Carter, cabinet member for governance, finance and corporate services and deputy leader at South Tyneside Council, said reviewing fees and charges was an “annual exercise which all councils do”.

“What sets South Tyneside apart is our razor focus to ensure that our charging policy continues to support those who need it most,” she added.

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“We always take a balanced approach to setting our fees and charges and will continue to subsidise where we can.

“However, this must be balanced against meeting the increasing demand and associated costs across adults and children’s social care supporting some of the most vulnerable in our society which absorbs an increasing proportion of all councils’ budgets.

“We know that some of our residents face financial difficulties. That is why we are determined to keep costs as low as possible and will continue to subsidise many services rather than go to full cost recovery.

“For example, with school meals and milk we will continue to support all families with the cost of living, by heavily subsidising these services due to huge increases in costs of food, energy, and staffing to deliver them.

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“45 per cent of children will still be supported with free school meals and milk, for everyone else the council will cover a quarter of the cost of milk and more than a third of the cost of school meals.

“New fees and charges are not proposed to generate any additional income, but to recover the rising cost to the Council of providing the services. We need to make sure that our services are sustainable in the longer term so that we can continue to provide the things that people rely on the most.”

Whilst most fees and charges will rise by 6 per cent, there are some areas where subsidy, whilst remaining, will reduce.

School meal prices have been frozen since 2018, supporting families through the cost of living crisis, and are understood to be below that of any other neighbouring local authority.

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The council currently subsidises school meals by almost 50 per cent and this subsidy will reduce by 30p with the new price of school meals expected to rise to £2.50 per pupil per meal, at least 50p cheaper than other areas in the North East.

For every school meal the council will contribute £1.50.

Changes to school meals and milk pricing are expected to be implemented from the summer term in April, 2025.

Children who receive free school meals will not be affected by this change and the council is looking at ways to maximise the take-up of free school meals through approaches such as auto-enrolment.

The council added it would continue to subsidise school milk and would cover a quarter of the cost of school milk for families, taking the price to £12 per pupil per term for those who pay, cheaper than the national school milk provider which all other Tyne and Wear authorities use.

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The council will pay £4 a term towards school milk for each child and pupils eligible for free school meals will still receive school milk free of charge and will not be affected by this change.

Another major change to fees and charges is linked to leisure services, which have been one of the council’s key investment areas across the last decade.

Council chiefs state there has been massive growth in leisure members over the past decade, now standing at more than 11,000, and that the increased charges aim to reflect council investment into the borough’s leisure hubs.

South Tyneside Council states the borough is now an outlier in terms of local authority provision in leisure centres and as a result, has supported thousands to access affordable fitness programmes.

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Whilst most individual/ sessional charges will increase by the standard 6 per cent, leisure memberships will rise by 10 per cent which the council states will bring them in line with neighbouring authorities and competitive to the private sector.

The council continues to provide discounted access to its leisure facilities through its Get Active discount card which supports senior citizens, full-time students, registered disabled, registered carers (in receipt of a carer’s allowance and caring for someone for at least 35 hours a week) and those on a government approved training scheme and those in receipt of universal credit / employment and support allowance, or a war pension.

The council states its leisure offer has benefited from significant capital investment in leisure buildings and that equipment has also recently been replaced across all facilities.

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Due to the requirements in updating promotional materials, notifying members, and instructing the direct debit provider to update mandates, it is expected that leisure membership increases will be implemented in the new year.

Another charge set to increase includes the ‘bulky waste’ collection charge, which was temporarily halved in 2022 as part of a pilot to measure the impact of fly-tipping.

The council said that the reduction in price made ‘little to no difference’ in fly-tipping and that the £26.50 charge for eight items will be reinstated.

Elsewhere, market charges in the Market Square area of South Shields will increase from £18 to £25, an increase of 39 per cent.

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Town hall bosses said the increase followed discussions with market traders and that extra income will be used to support market events in the council’s core budget, with the new rates also comparing favourably with neighbouring councils.

A new charge will also be introduced at the ‘Seaside Market’ at the foreshore (£22 for a full stall and £11 for a half stall) to reflect the introduction of the new market over the last year, although council chiefs say market fees will be kept under review.

It is also proposed to increase all cremation and burial charges by 7.5 per cent due to additional council costs around staffing and regulatory and energy costs, as well as recent capital investment in the crematorium and its grounds.

Reviewed charges followed a council review which saw bereavement fees compared with regional neighbours to ensure South Tyneside residents were not ‘disproportionately disadvantaged’.

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The cost of green waste collections, like other charges, will increase by 6 per cent and the charge for the 2025/26 season will be £37.50 for 15 collections.

According to council figures, the subscription service is heavily weighted to the borough’s five ‘least deprived’ wards, including Cleadon and East Boldon, Whitburn and Marsden, Hebburn South, Harton and Boldon Colliery.

The fee for hiring South Shields Town Hall for weddings is also expected to rise by 12.5 per cent to £450 to reflect the increase in costs of utilities and maintenance of the space. The council sees around 70 weddings a year at the civic building.

Revised fees and charges, unless otherwise stated, will be implemented from November 1,  2024.

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The wider package of changes to fees and charges is expected to generate an additional £1.1 million for the council.

Councils can use fees and charges, along with council tax and business rates, to raise funds to deliver council services but under the current local government funding model, the majority of funding for council services comes from Central Government.

Council bosses hope that reforms to the way councils are funded, including a shift from short-term annual settlements to multi-year funding settlements, will help provide more sustainable funding in future years.

Cllr Carter added: “We know that residents face real financial difficulty which is why we’re determined to keep costs as low as possible.

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“But also we aim to help the most vulnerable within our community and I think these fees and charges, whilst they are difficult decisions that we have had to take, we want to make sure that they’re fair and that residents aren’t disadvantaged”.

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