Opinion: A balanced budget despite challenge

In 2022 that challenge increased even further, with unprecedented rises in inflation, the war in Ukraine and the continued aftereffects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Like every council - and business for that matter – this perfect storm has made it even harder for us to deliver services with the money that we have available.

When you consider the challenges that we continue to face, it makes it even more pleasing that we now have plans for a balanced budget in 2023/24.

We’ll be investing in the things that matter to people – making sure our city centre is clean, safe and attractive, improvements to our roads and cycleways and active travel schemes, providing support for people in housing difficulty and those most impacted by the cost of living crisis, and care for the elderly and children in need.

We’re also creating a growth, regeneration and economic development service to drive forward at pace our ambitious plans to increase the number of homes, attract new businesses, create better jobs, and ensure that growth acts as a lever to address inequalities.

Our draft budget also includes a proposed 4.99% increase in council tax, including a 2% adult social care precept, providing ringfenced funding to provide adult social care services. This is an increase of £1.45 per week to the city council element of the bill for a typical band D property.

We know that residents are also facing their own financial challenges and we wish we did not have to ask them to pay more council tax, but we cannot deliver a balanced budget and continue to provide the services that people want and need without doing so.

Joint Scrutiny Committee will consider the draft budget on Monday (23 January) - you’ll be able to watch the meeting live on our YouTube channel. Cabinet will then consider the final budget before it goes to Full Council for final sign-off on 22 February.

It’s not just councils facing financial challenges - Covid-19 has made it harder for many businesses to make ends meet.

Thanks to Government funding, we’ve handed out millions of pounds to businesses since the pandemic began, helping them to weather the storm.

The latest round of funding was to support businesses which hadn’t received any other form of rates related relief.

I am pleased to say that we distributed our full allowance of funds from the Covid Additional Relief Fund (CARF) - one of only a handful of local authorities to do so.

Nearly £5.7m of business rates savings was handed out to 183 businesses, making the city council the only local authority in Cambridgeshire to distribute 100% of its funds.

For many of those businesses, it would have been a lifeline which enabled them to continue operating during a particularly challenging period.

At Monday’s cabinet meeting members approved the full business case for phase 3 of the university programme which includes a second teaching building, part of which will be a new ‘Living Lab’ public science facility. ARU Peterborough has been a huge success story for the city, and it is so exciting to be moving closer to beginning this latest phase.

On Monday we agreed to transfer ownership of the Regional Pool car park to allow the second teaching building to be built. There have been some concerns expressed by the public about this decision, but I would like to reassure them that we are doing all we can to ensure there is no inconvenience to people who use the swimming pool and athletics club.

We are working at pace to adapt existing parking facilities on site to accommodate more car-parking, which will be made clearer in the coming days. This would avoid some users and staff from having to walk off-site in the dark. In addition, there is car parking at Bishops Road car park.

The truth is that I do not want to invest heavily in alternative parking at the Regional Pool, as it is still the council’s intention to replace it with a new facility.

And finally, a service to mark Holocaust Memorial Day will take place at St John the Baptist Church in the city centre on Thursday 26 January at 12 noon