The leader of Shropshire Council has accused the Government of “not liking rural counties.”
Shropshire Council leader accuses Government of disliking rural areasThe local authority says that, had the existing Local Government funding policies “been broadly retained” for a further year, it would be facing a balanced budget position for 2025/26.
This, says the council, means that it needs to identify further savings of £22.8m to balance next year’s budget. This includes £8.5m of potential new savings that it has put out for consultation.The final Local Government Financial Settlement is set to be published in mid-February. However, at this stage, Shropshire is due to receive the third lowest funding out of all local authorities in England. That is despite Shropshire Council covering twice the area of the 33 London boroughs.
“If you talk to my counterpart in Hereford at the moment, they are in an unbelievably difficult position. There does feel to me that there is a little bit of an agenda going on here, and I firmly believe it’s around making unitary councils much bigger. “I’m not saying this is a carrot, I think it’s a stick that the Government are beating rural authorities with. There is a very good graph that shows all of the councils and all of the settlements they’ve received.
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