Shapps to the rescue!

 We are committed to ensuring that the Bonus remains a flexible, non-ringfenced fund, for local communities to spend as they see fit – from reinvesting it in housing or infrastructure, support local services or local facilities, or using the funds to keep council tax down.  Local authorities are best placed to understand the barriers to growth in their areas, the needs of their local communities and lead a mature debate about the benefits that growth can bring.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps, December 2011.

The Housing Minister, quoted, and pictured, above, is talking about the New Homes Bonus that was recently introduced by the Government, to reward local authorities for building new homes and to encourage them to do so in the future. Babergh is due to receive something in the region of £500,000 over this year and next from this source.

Readers should have no doubt that the proposal to use this money to bridge some of the budget gap at Babergh very probably means that councillors will be able to avoid the introduction of short term car park charging in 2012/13.

While the controversy over this issue has raged, in recent months it has gradually dawned on councillors that, yes, we could use some of this money to avoid charges.  In a dramatic development this morning an amendment was presented to Strategy Committee. This effectively overturned the recommendation in the paper before us, that short term car parking should be introduced.  Any further shortfall will in part be made up by an increase in long term charges, and some other small adjustments.

  

Some have argued that although the minister hasn’t said so the Bonus is really meant to be spent on projects to encourage further economic growth and that to use it in this way is in some sense ‘frittering it away’.   This is not what the minister says above.  Further, I would argue that supporting our still vibrant town centres by preserving free short term parking, in a time of secular and cyclical decline for the retail trade, is an investment of sorts and a very timely one.

All this having been said, I think it is a real pity that so much of the council's energy at budget time each year is taken up by controversy over parking charges.  By far the largest part of the savings for 2012/13 will be achieved by the integration of our services with Mid Suffolk District Council. This dramatic and fundamental change seems to have passed by virtually unnoticed, except of course by those who are directly, and often adversely, affected.

Let us hope that the proposal with regard to short term charging affords us some space to see whether a better long term solution can be found to the whole issue of traffic and parking in Sudbury and Hadleigh once and for all.