Burngreave faces cuts

Story: Lisa Swift and Douglas Johnson

The Council is expecting less money from government in April but its budget is still £16 million more than last year and its total expenditure is over £1.3 billion. However cuts in services are still high on the agenda as the Council implements a low Council tax increase and and, in Burngreave, the new community assembly structure means we lose out to other areas.

No more free rat treatment

This years budget was full of cuts, but one ‘saving’ that caused much concern was the new £35 charge for rat control. Rat control is a public health matter, not a question of individual choice. As local resident, Dave Fisher, wrote in a letter to the Council,

“Rats … carry parasites and other harmful organisms. By introducing a charge, people are less likely to use the service.” (See the full letter at Letter to the Council about rat control).

The Council told us they would be monitoring both rat populations and levels of demand.

Moving money across the city

The change to Community Assemblies means Burngreave loses out, as money is shared out per head of population, not according to need. It's already meant that we have less community assembly staff than we had under the Area Panels and less money for our Assembly to spend. As services realign to the new boundaries, we find Council staff who once only worked in Burngreave now cover an area four times as big.

The Council is also moving more budget decisions to Assemblies, funds that were once decided centrally and allocated according to need. This year, for instance, money for Child Safety Zones, which used to be based on the number of accidents in an area, will now be shared equally over all areas of the city. This is despite Burngreave having 8 times as many pedestrian accidents over the last five years (33) as Dore and Totley (4). The Council say that high accident spots will qualify for national funding and will always be addressed.

Luxuries or essentials?

Community Assembly money in Burngreave has to pay for essentials whilst more affluent areas can use it to develop new services. For instance, South West Sheffield recently benefited from a mobile computer training unit with 12 new laptops and a “team of experts”. At the same time, Burngreave is seeing the loss of over subscribed English and basic skills courses.

What we can do about it

It’s not all doom and gloom. There had been fears that the loss of two jobs in the team working on Parks projects would affect Burngreave’s green spaces. Chris Heeley of the Parks and Countryside Dept told the Community Assembly meeting in March that no existing projects would be cut.

Projects like Activity Sheffield and Study Support have received some further funding for the time being. And the campaign to save the summer term adult learning has persuaded the Council to find money to continue some courses.

This shows it is possible to get at least some results. But in a culture of ‘those who ask get’, we’ll just have to start asking. Talk to your Councillor, phone the Council when you’re not happy – 272 6444 – and get involved in local activities and campaigns through BCAF 272 8008.

Letter to the Council about rat control: Local resident Dave Fisher writes to the Council about the removal of free rat treatment in the Council's budget.