Council warned budget cuts will lead to ‘continued decline’ of towns

Ted Peskett, local democracy reporter

A Welsh council that wants to remove litter bins and reduce street cleaning has been told that its plans to save millions of pounds will result in a “continued decline of its towns”.

Members of Vale of Glamorgan Council’s environment and regeneration scrutiny committee met on Tuesday, February 11, to discuss a number proposals by the local authority to help it save £8m.

Of that £8m that the council will need to save in 2025-26 some £2.3m will need to come from the neighbourhood services area via a number of fee increases and changes to services.

As well as a further 25% reduction in litter bins and a reduction in street cleansing Vale of Glamorgan Council is looking at community asset transfers for a number of buildings, new camera enforcement cars, more enforcement officers, and an increase garden waste collection charges.

‘Hugely disappointed’

A member of the scrutiny committee, Cllr Mark Hooper, said of the budget proposals more generally: “It just seems that this… is something that shows that this council clearly doesn’t consider what it wants from traders and others and we are just going to see a continued decline in our towns.

“I am hugely disappointed by this.”

More recently the council was heavily criticised for proposing new car parking charges at a number of locations with some businesses in Barry Island and Penarth warning that it will drive trade away.

One of the ideas behind the charges is to increase turn over at seaside locations as the local authority said that the current system of two hours free parking can be difficult to enforce with some people able to take up parking spaces for the whole day.

Speaking on the proposed budget changes affecting neighbourhood services the head of neighbourhood services and transport at the council, Colin Smith, said: “We are so under-resourced.

“There is very little savings that we can actually capture.”

He later went on to add: “It just simply isn’t going to be possible to carry on and and be sustainably providing services as we do now unfortunately but we will look to coordinate more efficiently with these new initiatives.”

Fly-tipping

Vale of Glamorgan Council recently announced it was in the process of removing litter bins at a number of locations across the county following a review.

It is hoped that the move will help the misuse of bins which the council says have been “persistently used for fly-tipping in some residential areas”.

The council also said it was installing recycling bins in a number of areas.

Another member of Vale of Glamorgan Council’s environment and regeneration scrutiny committee, Cllr Joanna Protheroe, urged the council not to remove any more bins until a review had been undertaken on the impact of the current process.

Cllr Protheroe said the number of bins in the county, particularly in resorts, might “just not be enough” during the summer months.

She added: “I am wondering if we can pause where we we are before we remove more and also consider for out tourist areas if we can have an education piece during those summer months… so that we don’t get more plastic going into the sea.”

Mr Smith said it was the council’s intention to take stock after the removal of litter bins in the Vale and that teams in the local authority will undertake surveys.

He said that there are no plans to remove litter bins in resorts, adding: “We will need that capacity… and they are some of the most important bins that we have.”

Parks and open spaces

There is also a proposal to use an alternative delivery model for parks and open spaces but there is little detail on what this would actually entail.

When we asked the council for more information on the proposal in January it said: “This is still at a very early stage.

“We are looking at a transformation of how that area of our work is delivered and will be considering different models such as looking for sponsorship of some sites, establishing more ‘friends of…’ volunteer groups to help maintain parks and open spaces, and seeing if there is potential for our workforce to operate more flexibly.”

A member of Vale of Glamorgan Council’s environment and regeneration scrutiny committee, Cllr Jayne Norman, said she had concerns about potential cuts to parks services and asked if it would mean redundancies or redeployment of staff.

Mr Smith said: “We are aiming to try and not affect any permanent worker if that is possible.

“That reshaping work has just started and… I can’t give you a definitive answer until that reshaping work has finished in approximately one to two months.”

Similarly to other local authorities across the UK Vale of Glamorgan Council has had to cut services and increase fees and charges over the years due to increased pressure on its budgets.

The council told the Welsh Government that the overall proposed settlement across Wales – the amount of money councils receive each year for their budgets – is insufficient.

They welcomed the additional £223m they expect to receive but said that this is short of the £559m worth of pressures it faces.