Blackburn with Darwen Council Budget - no Council Tax Increase

The Labour Group on Blackburn with Darwen Group pushed through their budget last night with only the Liberal Democrats oppsoing them.

The Labour Group have introduced budget cuts of £33.5 million following reduction in government funding of £27.5 million. The government gave the Council nearly £3 million in Transition Grant to help mitigate some of the cuts and a grant of over £1 million which allowed the Council Tax to stay the same.

Commenting on the budget, Lid Dem Leader, Cllr David Foster said," We all recognise the drastic nature of these cuts. They come about because of the massive debt left by the previous Labour government. Any government would have had to take drastic action to cut the massive deficit which sees £1 in every £4 going to pay interest on our debts. The Liberal Democrat Group on the Council has criticised the government for the degree of cuts being imposed on local government and the fact that most of them have to be made in the first year.

Locally the Labour administration has delayed making some of the painful but necessary cuts and that has made the problem worse. We also need to rebalance the budget. We have spent lots of money because we are a deprived Borough but little seems to have been achieved in making us less deprived. We need to tackle this and make our Borough one that will attract the growth of private enterprise and make us less dpenedent on government handouts."

Details of the budget can be found at http://94.236.33.182/CmiswebPublic/Meeting.aspx?meetingID=729