THE council wants to save £36 million over the next two years but has only labelled £3.7m of the proposals as cuts.
The Department of Adult Services, Health and Housing (DASHH) will be the hardest hit, with £11.149m of cuts and efficiencies.
Children’s and family services are also affected, with £10.933m of savings and cutbacks.
Services which the council will cut between 2013 and 2015 include:
- Review and redesign of early intervention, family support and integrated youth services - £1.7m
- Axing two school improvement officers - £184,000
- Cut in care support budgets for older people,
people with learning and physical disability and those with mental
health problems - £150,000
- End Journeys youth service - £140,000
- Smaller contribution to Upper Norwood Joint Library - £114,000
- Reduction of council’s role in “facilitation of culture”, including reducing archive service to statutory minimum - £105,000
- Further reduction in payments to the voluntary sector - £80,000
- Reduction of funding for supplementary education, mentoring and community languages - £78,000
- Transfer or reduce 42 per cent of school crossing patrols - £42,000
- Reduction of tree planting and maintenance - £35,000
- Reduction of Safer Croydon Partnership Budget - £23,000
- Non maintenance (closure) of South Norwood Pitch & Putt - £20,000
- Removal of “under-used” football pitches - £12,000
- Less commissioning of domestic violence services - £20,000
- Reduction in park related costs (trees/sports equipment) - £10,000
- Reduced commissioning for youth counselling - £10,000
A
little over half way into the current administration in Taberner House
and it seems the Tories have lost the plot once again and sadly
once again it’s the North of the borough and the environment which are
losing out.
In
the New Year residents face fines if they do not recycle (use their
green and blue boxes), yet the locations for Christmas tree recycling
number only 17 and many of the northern-most wards are not amongst them.
Even my own ward in Addiscombe, where recycling rates are high, has
lost its tree recycling point this year for some unknown reason. Looking
at Your Croydon (available in libraries), there
are even fewer recycling locations for Waste Electronic and Electrical
Equipment (WEEE) which number (wait for it) just 5 in a borough of 24
wards.
Does
the council seriously expect people to drive their tree to a
neighbouring ward? For those (like me) who do not have a car or who can
no longer drive (like my mother), are we seriously expected to drag a
tree to a neighbouring ward? Although I belong to Zipcar (a car club
which rents out cars by the hour or day), a real tree would surely drop
most of its needles in the car and necessitate
a lengthy (& costly) cleaning process. So anyone in the wards of
Bensham Manor, Selhurst, Thornton Heath, West Thornton, Woodside, in
some central wards like Fairfield and Fieldway, and even some more
affluent wards in the South (where recycling rates are usually
higher) Croham and Sanderstead will have to make alternative
arrangements. Some dedicated people may make the effort and drive their
recycling to a civic amenity site, but it is questionable whether the
emissions and costs would see a net benefit. You could
always try and carry a tree on a bus (but I wouldn’t hold your breath
for a driver allowing you aboard!); at least when you get to the amenity
site’s gates the staff have to take the tree off you and take it to the
green waste container. You could also store
your tree at home but you’d have to wait until April for kerbside green
waste collections to resume, or spend hours cutting the tree into small
enough pieces to fit in your food waste bin! Of course the most likely
action is that trees will be dumped, either
in bin liners in wheelie bins (destined for landfill) or worse
fly-tipped somewhere. At least if it’s fly-tipped on council land the
council will have to pick up the tab, so the council will end up paying
for their short-sightedness or inconsideration for us
residents who suffer their ill-conceived decisions. The reality is that
the clean-up costs will merely be passed on to us, and services will be
cut even further to ‘balance the books’.
If
anyone is of a mind to protest peacefully, the option of civil
disobedience is open to you. Maybe the New Year will see a sudden forest
of spruces appear on the lawns of the Taberner House. Gandhi would be
proud and it might cheer the place up in these grim times. Conveniently
they would then be in one place for collection for recycling.
People
expect the Green Party to be concerned about the environment but we
also care about people. The people in the North of Croydon have
been short-changed for years in terms of council service delivery. The 2
party duopoly in the council chamber has gone on for too long. The
Green Party would ensure that council services are truly universal and
that no-one misses out, that efficiencies aren’t
confused with cuts and that common sense prevails over short-termism.
Unmaintained park equipment will need replacing sooner and we’ve seen
plenty of that in recent years; ask anyone who has used the play area in
South Norwood Country Park in the last 5 years.
Cuts to tree services are also unwise as our green spaces are something
we hold dear; they are the lungs of our borough and never have they been
me needed when we’ve got several areas where we fail the air quality
regulations (such as around Beddington where
the incinerator is planned). Also why does it cost £12,000 to remove
some football pitches? The turf will still need mowing, but why can’t
they be left for people to use? With an obesity epidemic and worries
about the disaffected youth turning to crime, do
we really want to discourage people from using parks? It’s about time
the residents of Croydon had a council which thinks beyond the next
election and of what is the right thing to do for decades hence. The
Iroquai in Northern America make decisions based on
the consequences 7 generations hence; this is something we should all
aspire to. We only have one planet, one pair of lungs each, but plenty
of residents who work hard (paid or unpaid) and deserve better…oh and
who have a vote.
Of
course there is always the possibility that the Tory administration has
resigned itself to lose in 2014. With ever more cuts facing us
for years to come (they’ve only just started!), they’ve gone beyond
trimming fat and are now severing limbs. We’re now at the stage of
cutting back to the bare statutory minimum, so where do we/they go from
here? At least the Tories can say “we didn’t increase
council tax”. Personally I’d rather pay a bit extra to get the services
we need, want and deserve. The Tories wouldn’t have given up on
re-election already, would they? I know what I’ll be asking Santa for
this Yuletide and it’s not red or blue, but green.
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Tags croydon, greenparty
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