An interesting report in the Echo from the new reporter for Rayleigh and Rochford, Steve Hackwell:
A SPORTS centre could go as part of the ?1.4million cuts set out by Rochford District Council.
The axe is hovering over Great Wakering sports centre, which costs the council ?80,000 a year to run.
Bosses want to hand it over to the village?s parish council, or a similar organisation by October to guarantee its future, but say they cannot rule out closure if a deal does not materialise.
Trevor Goodwin, a Conservative district councillor for Great Wakering and the parish council?s chairman, was adamant his parish could not afford the extra costs.
The report goes on to quote Terry Cutmore:
Terry Cutmore, leader of the Tory-run authority, said: ?We like to think we have done this in the Rochford way ? focusing on the best we can do for residents.
?It is going to be tough for everybody, but I think what we have come up with is a balanced solution.?
Grants to voluntary organisations, including the Citizens? Advice Bureau and the Homeless Action Resource Project, will be cut by ?53,000 from April.
Finance officers also want to save ?15,000 by either transferring responsibility for some of the district?s public toilets to parish councils, or closing them permanently.
There’s one slightly ironic line in there at the end:
The complete set of proposals will be discussed by councillors at a meeting on Monday.
If they are agreed, officers will begin drawing up an official budget next month.
The council meeting is on Tuesday. It’s the Tory group meets on Mondays.
You can find the financial papers for Tuesday’s nights meeting here.
Surely it makes sense to keep facilities like toilets under Rochford control so that one contract could be made for cleaning/ maintenance thereby keeping costs down. The Parish councils cannot take over these facilities without raising their part of the council tax which would negate the object of the exercise i.e reducing local government spending. the details should be interesting reading.
With only six public toilets in the district I hope none are closed down, as I am running long distances training for the London Marathon they can come in very handy when you are running for 3-4 hours at a time.