Telford & Wrekin Council will consult on £9m list of service cuts
Thursday 15th December 2011, 10:59AM GMT.
Newport’s community recycling centre could close as part of more than 200 cuts to services Telford & Wrekin Council is considering in a bid to save £9 million.
Raising parking fees in Ironbridge and Telford town centre, increasing charges for social services and cutting back on litter picking are also among the options being put out for consultation.
Three options will also be put to residents on next year’s council tax – freezing it to take a Government grant of £1.4 million, which would lead to bigger cuts in the following years; raising it by 2.5 per cent this year to avoid even more savage cuts next year; or increasing council tax by 3.5 per cent to avoid some of the cuts or reduce tax in 2013-14.
A 2.5 per cent rise for the average home in the borough, which is band B, equates to 41p per week. A 3.5 per cent rise would be 58p per week.
Councillor Bill McClements, cabinet member for resources, said: “The Government’s one-year sweetener to freeze council tax is, in reality, a bitter pill that will lead to higher rises in council tax or even deeper cuts in future, but we will be consulting on this issue.”
Councillor McClements said most of the £20 million savings the council has to find would come from a reduction in staffing, cuts to senior managers’ pay and efficiency and restructuring but about £8.6 million would have to come from service cuts.
The full budget proposals, including the cuts being considered are available at www.telford.gov.uk/budget
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That’s clever…
Try and make Newport have a further 850 homes and then close the recycling centre…!!!
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Totally agree, any coincidence that the recyling centre would potentially be where the Station Road development entrance would be?
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No coincidence I’m sure, especially when the workmen there were openly saying well before the plans for the Newport Megatropolis were announced that the recycling site (and the adjacent Springfield Industrial units) were going to be sold for housing developement and we’d have to take our rubbish to the Granville site at Donnington.
Oddly enough I laughed then, making some clearly naive comment like ‘nah, they wouldn’t do that here, people won’t bother going all the way to Telford’
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Agree with Dave and Why ?. If you look at the plans for the station road development the recycling centre is about 50 metres from where the proposed entrance to the supermarket will be.
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dont you realise raising car park fees will just cause people to stay away from shopping centre’s. and shop on line.
closing newport recycling is a no no as it will lead to fly tipping.
and all those extra houses in newport will bring in council tax, a plus, and more rubish.a neg,
come on i’m sure if you start to manage some of the things you put out to tender, you could have more revenue,
the upper management need to start earning there wages if you ask me…
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The proposed increase is 30p or so, hardly going to ruin ironbridge trade is it?
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To all of the above and all of those who may comment below…..
We are living in a time of cuts – look at Shropshire Council, they’re doing exactly the same! I’m sure closing a recycling centre is a better alternative to say, a massive increase in council tax to pay for it!
We are provided with Kerbside collections, and have 3 other recycling centres in the borough – surely a trip to Granville isn’t that difficult? If it is the council still run a collection service?!
Something has to give!
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Newport residents have a very good record for re-cycling it’s waste. Not everyone can afford to travel to Granville to dispose of waste not collected at the kerbside. The proposed closure is more likely to make way for an unwanted development than cost cutting
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I use the Newport recycling centre. I understand that there are other centres in the borough but I don’t live near them. Why should I travel furtehr afield to rid myself of small electrical appliances – the grey bin will get them in future.
I have no children so I’d rather all the schools were closed than have another service that I use and pay for scrapped!!
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I rarely go into the Town Centre these days anyway. The parking fees are already too high. I do all my shopping on the internet and if I want to go for a coffee I go where they provide free parking.
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Why can’t they make the council tax dodgers pay up?
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Steve,
Better still, why don’t our government close a few tax loopholes and make the wealthiest 5% of income tax dodgers pay at the same rate as the rest of us? That would raise up to £150bn per annum!
And they’d still be very, very rich.
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Close School meals,Put it out to private tender, everybody hates school meals even the kids!
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And the really easy answer to all this is to get the people claiming our taxes want everything for nothing out on the streets cleaning them up + working in the community! Ok wont save 9 million but it will go a long way towards It I bet!
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EASY
I say just cut everything i dont use
turkeys wont vote for christmas
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