Mr Mayor
The continued international financial crisis has caused this past year to remain a difficult time for many residents of this town. However, we need to keep positive about the future of Worthing.
For too long now Worthing has allowed itself to be put down by a minority who have a “glass half-full attitude”. In this Council chamber we must show passion and strong leadership for our town. With a clear understanding of what we want we can lead our town back to being the very best on the South Coast. My glass is already more than half-full and I can see a future where it will be brimming over!
Last summer we lined our streets to cheer the Olympic Torch as it passed through. Many were overwhelmed by the massive support shown by our residents. It was reported by the BBC that Worthing provided one of the largest crowds seen anywhere in the South.
As a nation we were proud of our Olympic achievements with first class event management combined with the most successful Olympic team ever. I believe we can learn from this experience.
With everyone working as a team we can prove the doubters wrong and produce results of which everyone can be proud. Worthing is fortunate to have some wonderful assets and great community spirit.
A recent study authored by Francis Greene, Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Birmingham, ranked Worthing in the top five outside of London for business competitiveness.
Whilst some may have been surprised by this I was not. We have many world class businesses operating from our town.
During her Diamond Jubilee year Her Majesty the Queen bestowed two Enterprise awards upon Worthing based companies. Electronic Temperature Instruments won in the International Trade category. This Worthing born company employs 118 local people who proudly manufacture a range of high tech products which are exported across the globe.
B&W Group won in the Innovation category, in recognition of their industry leading diamond dome tweeter. Speakers manufactured in Worthing are found in the homes of the world’s rich and famous.
These are just two examples but there are many others such as Lemo who are specialist manufacturers of fibre optic cable connectors. These cables are used internationally as the standard connection for HD film and television broadcast cameras. We have Teledyne Corman who design and manufacture monitoring systems used in deep sea oil pipelines. In our town centre we have Fresh Egg and Pegasus PR both of whom have provided much needed employment growth during the past few difficult years.
The Cities Outlook 2013 report shows Worthing has the building blocks for growth with skills and employment rates amongst the highest in the Country. The report went on to highlight the fact that growth was being constrained by a lack of development funding. Those of us who wish to see an early solution to the stalled regeneration of Teville Gate and Union Place will concur with this finding.
However, in spite of the ongoing banking issues there is a good deal of investment in Worthing where a number of cranes can still be seen on the horizon.
Worthing College are well advanced in their move to the Warren. Northbrook College are underway with the second phase of their Broadwater Campus expansion. When these schemes are completed our teenagers will, at last, have first class facilitates for their further education.
Both of the colleges have funded their investments with house building. This will provide much needed family housing for people wishing to live and work in Worthing.
A further sign of returning confidence can be seen at Sea Place/Eirene Road where work has recently resumed on the phase 2 developments.
The former Beach Hotel has been demolished and groundworks are underway for the first purpose built hotel built in Worthing for many decades. This development will also provide a number of new seafront apartments.
The redevelopment of the former Eardley Hotel has been completed. Despite the financial downturn all but four of these grand new apartments have already been sold for significant sums. This shows that people see Worthing as a place on the way up.
At New Brunswick Drive this council in partnership with Worthing Homes has provided funding to facilitate 51 new homes for people in housing need.
Recognising the continued shift in demographics your council has delivered yet more new and refurbished children’s playgrounds.
In October the new Gull Island facility in Beach House Park was formally opened by Richard Ashworth MEP.
At Pond Lane a new extended play area, including new play equipment, fencing, gates and a disabled friendly sloped pathway, officially opened in January.
Next month a refurbished play facility is due to open at the Bull recreation ground in Goring. The Goring Residents Association made a financial contribution to this scheme for which we are most grateful.
A further investment for the youth of our town has been completed at Palatine Park. This joint scheme with the Football Foundation has provided a new pavilion and drained, levelled, and resurfaced the playing pitches. It was formally opened last summer by Sir Trevor Brooking.
After many years of planning the £2.5m mercury abatement works at the Crematorium have been completed. The scheme has provided many environmental improvements which will greatly reduce harmful emissions and energy consumption.
In our drive to reduce the number of empty homes in Worthing a contract has been agreed with Homes and Communities Agency providing £100,000 of external funding which will be used for grants and loans.
Work on the Accommodation Strategy has continued as we focus on moving from three to two administrative buildings in partnership with Adur District Council. We expect staff to begin reoccupation of Portland House over the coming weeks. New ways of working with flexible office space and home working will be embraced.
Whilst on this subject I am sure members will share my concerns over the recent ICT issues which have caused great inconvenience and severe disruption to our customer facing services. I would assure members that I have been busy ensuring steps are taken to deal with the issues. The Census ICT partnership has come under intense external scrutiny and I look forward to seeing proposals which will produce a much more resilient business focussed ICT service for the future.
We recently invited Communities Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, to come to Worthing and witness first hand the latest developments in the groundbreaking partnership working introduced by Worthing and Adur Councils. Whilst Eric has been unable to accept due to other diary commitments I am pleased to announce that, Communities Undersecretary of State, Brandon Lewis, has accepted our invitation to formally reopen Portland House on June 13. I hope this event will showcase our achievements as national leaders in redesigning public services to provide savings for taxpayers.
Our new Splashpoint Leisure Centre is almost complete. There are still some hurdles to cross but we hope to open the doors to the public in early May. As a celebration of this long awaited achievement I am pleased to announce that London 2012 Paralympics Gold Medal Winner, Ellie Simmonds, has been booked to formally open the new pools on 20 June. Plans are taking shape to make this a truly memorable day where we hope to involve representatives from various sections of our community.
On the subject of our community we continue to work in partnership with groups wherever we can. Here are just a few examples:
Our first participatory budgeting event, the Money Tree, is taking place soon. Worthing Youth Councillors and Worthing Borough Councillors have been working hard to bring the young people of Worthing a brand new funding opportunity. There is £20,000 for projects which benefit young people in the borough. As a competitive process the projects will be voted on by young people who will ultimately decide the winners of the funding.
The council is working with local stakeholders including businesses, Worthing Hospital, Schools and community groups to submit an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the regeneration of Homefield Park – The Peoples Park.
In Tarring, allotment plot holders have begun a joint project with the Council to hand over daily management of their site later in 2013.
In response to local residents’ wishes we will be supporting the national “playing out” scheme. A pilot will provide up to six road closures on set dates which will allow local children to play on their street without fear of motorists. There will be no charge for those who wish to join in the fun providing they take advantage of the dates offered.
Your council has been supporting unemployed people with schemes such as the ‘making changes’ event which was an opportunity for people to learn alternative approaches to their career development.
This time last year we had met the worst of the financial challenges set for us by the Coalition Government in 2010. However, I did warn that signals of further reductions in local authority grant funding were coming from government ministers.
The most recent statements from DCLG suggest our grant funding will continue to fall until at least 2017/18. The potential impact of these further reductions is shown on Page 17 in your budget pack.
We have a duty to our residents to set a balanced budget. It is important that we plan for the future in setting our budget this evening. Those who have recently watched local television news will have seen what happens in less responsible councils where suitable plans have not been implemented. The budget we consider this evening is prudent and takes account of the need to provide a stable basis for our taxpayers. Once again there are no significant cuts to front line services in this budget.
For future years we will continue to seek new partnerships acknowledging that small district councils working alone are unlikely to survive the challenges being set for us by Government. However, I assure members that these partnerships will not threaten our sovereignty or damage our proud history.
Worthing is working with Adur District, Brighton & Hove City Council and Lewes District Council to submit a joint application to the Governments City Deal Wave 2 initiative. This bid recognises that functional economic areas often stretch well beyond traditional local government boundaries. I welcome this chance to work with our partners to find ways of generating economic growth, jobs and opportunities for our communities. It is hoped that City Deals will see the Government implementing some of the findings of the Heseltine Review into growth, by devolving pots of investment funding to these new partnerships.
Following our successful European funding bid last year we have learnt that cross channel partnerships will be essential for any future bidding rounds. Cllr Bryan Turner will be attending a conference in Rotterdam where he aims to make friends and promote further inward investment from Europe.
We will continue to focus our efforts in building partnership relationships at every opportunity.
The next financial year will see the introduction of the “Business Rate Retention” scheme which will allow this council to share in any increase in non domestic rates. We must be cautious because the scheme also requires us to share any reduction in these rates.
With this in mind we are in the process of agreeing revised and simplified corporate priorities which will focus on delivering economic growth. Without growth in business rates we face a bleak future. Therefore, once the new priorities are agreed I plan to return to this subject with proposals for additional investment in economic development.
Once again we have listened to our residents wishes communicated via the Your Chance to Be Chancellor survey. This year we consulted on the OSC working group’s proposals for additional council tax on second homes and empty properties.
In response to the public’s wishes we will take additional income from these technical changes to council tax. Over the coming year the money raised will be used to protect low income families from the reductions in Council Tax Benefit being passed to us by the Coalition Government.
The budget before you provides a 0% council tax increase for the third successive year. Whilst we are grateful for the Government’s Council Tax Freeze Grant once again it does not fully fund the cost of this freeze leaving taxpayers with a deficit in future years.
Cabinet have asked me to write to Government expressing your Councils concerns. If we are to avoid trouble in future years any further “freeze grants” must be added to our base grant.
If they are not our taxpayers cannot afford to accept them again. Our residents’ survey has shown that over half of respondents would prefer a small increase in council tax as opposed to reductions in front line services.
Within the budget there are significant reductions in service controlled budgets for Indoor Leisure, Theatres, and Grounds Maintenance.
In Leisure we have continued to see double digit growth in membership of out Fit4 scheme. There have been year on year improvements in this budget and it is hoped that with the exclusion of support services and capital charges the leisure service will continue to head towards a zero subsidy.
The new Theatres management team are working hard to deliver the savings detailed in the new Theatres Business Plan. Over the Christmas period the pantomimes improved on the previous year’s record performance. The new Theatres Guide has been very well received by the public and activities that had previously been run at a loss are starting to be turned around. I am confident that the targets we have set will be met or exceeded.
Significant savings will be delivered by joining our grounds maintenance services with Adur Council’s in house service. This new structure provides us with fewer chiefs and more indians. It does away with the former arrangement where three managers were required to monitor the complex contract agreements.
The budget allows a small pay increment for staff subject to collective negotiation at national level. Once again funding is also in place to ensure contractual pay grade increments are met.
I should like to pay thanks to my cabinet, policy advisors, and back-bench colleagues for the support they have provided me in preparing this budget. I would also like to congratulate the Cabinet member for Resources for his excellent work and for helping myself and other Cabinet colleagues to set priorities.
I pay tribute to our Chief Executive and Senior Management Team who have delivered our agenda. Indeed we should be grateful to officers at all levels who have worked hard to serve our residents during what continues to be a very difficult period for local government. Our Chief Executive, Peter Latham, retires this summer and the recruitment process for his successor is well underway. It has been a great pleasure to work with Peter Latham and I am grateful for his support in making some very difficult changes during his tenure.
I would also like to thank Sarah Gobey and her team, who under enormous pressure from Governmental policy have helped us produce an extremely helpful budget for 2013/14.
Mr Mayor, colleagues and Members, I now move the adoption of the Civic Budget and the formal Tax Resolution as set out in the papers before you.