Last Thursday evening saw the Council's Budget Setting Meeting.   At the end of over 4 hours of debate, the controlling Liberal-Democrats set a budget that gave Council Tax a rise of 4.25%.

The Conservative Group had amendments to put forward which would help residents in these difficult times of recession, but held off when the ruling group put forward an offer for us to share our ideas with them with a view to making progress.    The Labour Group offered nothing.

The best description of the Liberal-Democrat response to the financial situation is 'unimaginative short-terminism'.   Why do I say this?  Clearly they have demonstrated no appetite to make difficult decisions about how to trim and tailor the Council's spending to the realities of the Council's income.

The closer you look at this Budget the more you realise that they have resorted to borrowing on a grand scale, to the extent that over £8 million pounds is coming out of the Revenue Budget to support the borrowing, and the Capital programme.  To make it even worse the Capital Programme itself is the victim of borrowing. The Liberal-Democrats have entirely made up the huge gaps caused by falls in the Council's capital receipts, by, you've guessed it, yet more borrowing.  What they have done is burdened generations to come with the costs of such poor financial management.

Like everywhere else Stockport is suffering from the crisis caused by Gordon Brown and his Government who have wasted an estimated £1 trillion and in addition have managed to ramp up a national debt of £2 trillion (according to the Office of National Statistics).

Like Budget Meetings for the past few years, one theme was constantly offered by the Liberal-Democrats -   'It isn't our fault'.  Mind you it is everybody else's fault, yet they have controlled Stockport Council for the last ten years, so yes their failure to manage in previous years has contributed largely to the current situation.

What is conspicuous about Stockport's new budget is the absence of any specific investment or spending proposals.  I assume that they didn't expect the opposition groups to notice there is over £5 million of unallocated resources, yet, they have not brought any proposals forward to deal with that money.

A change of national government is vital to the recovery of the economy. Liberal-Democrats have now shown Stockport residents just how tired and exhausted they have become.  It's now time for change in the political control of Stockport and the Conservative Group will continue to challenge on your behalf.

Cllr Les Jones
Conservative Group Leader
Heatons North

This article, by Cllr Les Jones, was first published by the Stockport Express 04/03/2009.