There was a well attended meeting of the Acocks Green Ward Committee on Wednesday evening.

The main agenda item was passing the first, and biggest, tranche of Community Chest funding for the 2010/11 financial year. The following items were proposed by the Ward Advisory Board and approved by the Ward Committee:

1. Security Gating £2,500
2. Gardening Scheme £7,500
3. John Gayle Soccer £20,000
4. Acocks Green Carnival £6,000
5. Extra Special Bulk Collections £8,000
6. Community Unity £1,200
7. New Domehawk Security Camera Columns £1,600
8. Improvements to the 260th Scout Hut £2,450
9. Acocks Green Village Christmas Lights £5,000 

This makes a total approved spend of £54,200 leaving £45,750 unallocated and to be spent in coming months.

The Community Chest spend went through without query or debate, which I feel shows an acceptance that it has been well spent and achieves good value for money.

The meeting then had a good debate on one of the measures being taken by the Yardley Consituency Committee to help balance its budget. This is the closure of the Cafe in Fox Hollies Leisure Centre and its replacement with a seating area with vending machines. Many people had come to the meeting to express the view that the cafe should stay open. I’d love to be able to say we could keep the cafe open, but unfortunately the financial situation means economies have to be made, and I strongly believe that core services have to take priority in these difficult times.

The basics of the situation are:

1. The recession has cut income and increased demand for the Council’s services. Other costs, such as the number of elderly people who need care, are also rising.
2. Unlike Central Government, the Council is not allowed to have a budget deficit while the recession runs its course (for comparison the recession means Central Government currently runs an annual deficit equivalent to £25,000 for every man, woman and child in the country)
3. So the Council has to cut the costs of its services – by around £69m in 2010 – to balance its budget. Yardley Constituency has its share of this. The aim is to cut costs but not the services themselves.
4. The Cafe makes a £50,000 annual loss. A lot of work has gone in to trying to eliminate this loss over the past couple of years, but this has been unsuccessful and we now have to face the choice of replacing it with a seating and vending area or making the direct service cuts we are working so hard to avoid. 
5. Even after the Cafe is closed, the basic service will still be provided; there will still be somewhere to sit before or after you use the Centre and you will still be able to get some refreshments.

While I don’t expect those who enjoy using the cafe to like this, these are the kind of decisions we are going to have to take this year, and in coming years too, as the public sector starts to cut its deficit. They are not decisions we should shy away from. It would be irresponsible to do so.

Another similar issue was raised. This is the proposed co-location of the Acocks Green Neighbourhood Office into Acocks Green Library. This will save significant rental costs – again making a contribution to balancing the budget, without fundamental cuts to services. Yes there will be some loss of space in the library, but its a relatively small proportion of the space and the community room, which is very well used, will be unaffected. We would rather do this than be forced into having to cut, for example, library opening hours.

As I have said before the root cause of all this pressure is the national economic situation. This was made worse by the fact that the Labour Government, believed its own rhetoric that it had abolished ‘boom and bust economics’, so was horrendously unprepared for the biggest ‘bust’ since the second world war. We will all now have to pay the bill for this and anyone who tells you otherwise is living in a fantasy land.