Council leader defends cuts warning it’s ‘beyond dangerous’ to do nothing

Nicholas Thomas – Local Democracy Reporter

The leader of a council which is set to mothball the Llancaiach Fawr heritage site has warned it’s “beyond dangerous” to claim all services can be saved.

Caerphilly County Borough Council leader Sean Morgan said doing so will put “the whole council at risk”, he told colleagues at a meeting on Tuesday November 12.

Cllr Morgan has frequently warned the council must plug a £45m gap in its budgets over the next two years, and even ongoing cost-cutting measures could leave decision makers millions of pounds short.

“It may be popular to kick the can down the road and avoid difficult decision-making, but it would not be popular when it leads to the inevitable insolvency of the council,” he said.

‘Difficult’

In response to a question from Cllr Kevin Etheridge, who said thousands of people had opposed the mothballing of Llancaiach Fawr, Cllr Morgan said “not taking difficult decisions is not an option”.

“Not taking difficult decisions on non-statutory services will mean cuts to statutory services”, he added, before asking Cllr Etheridge “which would you choose” between “either keeping Llancaiach Fawr open or ensuring a school in your ward had enough teaching staff?”.

Cllr Etheridge, an independent from Blackwood, also cast doubts on the effectiveness of public consultation exercises on planned cuts or closures.

“People are concerned that when they [take part in] the consultation it is not looked at,” he said.

Public interest

In response, Cllr Morgan said residents and council members could have “complete confidence” in consultations, but insisted the process “is not a referendum”.

He also said local authorities are allowed to act “contrary to the views provided when it is in the wider public interest to do so”.

The council leader also noted the participation levels in recent consultation exercises.

He said the local residents who took part in the Llancaiach Fawr consultation represented “1.4% of the population of Caerphilly borough [who] were opposed to the closure, while 98.6% did not feel moved to offer a view on it”.

The response rate was even lower for the consultation on the proposed closure of Meals Direct, a meals-on-wheels  service supporting elderly and vulnerable residents which is often subsidised by the council.

“Yet due to the impact on the vulnerable, [the] cabinet did not support its removal,” Cllr Morgan said. “Instead, we asked officers to work up some alternative proposals to make the service sustainable in the long run. While [Llancaiach Fawr] manor was a service residents want, Meals Direct was a service residents need.”

He added: “I hope this shows that as a cabinet, we do acknowledge the views of the public and indeed those of joint scrutiny in consideration of matters. But we also have to consider the impact each individual decision has on wider council resources and the population of Caerphilly as a whole.”