A new vision for one of Lancashire's cities
Preston is poised to reap the benefits of more than £100m worth of investment that will transform the city into “a hive of local creative, cultural and business activity”.
The authority will also have to make more than half a million pounds of savings during 2023/24 – with more to come in the years ahead. Opposition parties broadly agreed with the thrust of the ruling group’s budget proposals – but did draw up dividing lines over policies and plans involving relatively small amounts of the overall £24m revenue pot that the council will have at its disposal this year.
He added that it had been “crucial” to the council’s future to get the funding for the investments right – including the timing of the borrowing that would be needed. Budget papers reveal that the amount of “prudential borrowing” required for Animate will total nearly £28m over the next four years. The cafe’s running costs come to £90,000 a year – an expense that Liberal Democrat group leader John Potter decried as being a case of “ideology…stifling pragmatism and reasoned thought”. He said that the facility had only come into the council’s hands because one of the people previously running it had passed away, but claimed that the Labour group had presented the transfer as “some sort of failure of capitalism”.
The Conservatives also opposed a planned £40,000 study into how the council might be able to influence improvements in the private rented sector in the city – saying that they agreed with the sentiment, but that the authority did not have the staff available to conduct such an investigation. Meanwhile, city council leader Matthew Brown hailed what he called the “minor miracle” of being able to set a budget that did not involve service cuts or job losses.
More than £500,000 of savings were agreed for 2023/24 – including £200,000 from a drive to find ways of working more efficiently, £100,000 from vacancies and a further £100,000 from short-term reductions in non-staffing costs arising from changes to the scheduling of the capital programme as a result of the priority schemes that are now getting under way.
However, the party came under fire for proposing to take £50,000 out of a community grant scheme from 2025/26. Explaining the plan, Cllr Harry Landless said that there were sometimes other sources of money available to community groups.
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