By Isle of Wight Observer
The budget was passed on Wednesday evening at the full council meeting.
As you will have seen reported, alongside the many good things the Alliance Administration were able to do, such as freezing charges for the first time in thirteen years, an amendment was passed that added some elements to the budget and took away some proposals.
The amendment came from a joint approach by the Conservative Group and the Empowering Islanders group, who are now acting as one group in the council chamber.
It is important to note that the amendment does not bind the hands of the administration. The budget as passed merely sets the perameters within which the administration operates. Where money has been identified for a particular purpose it simply means it can be used for that purpose, not that it must be. It is like you or I setting up a loan account but not drawing on it.
Some of the proposals in the Conservative amendment are simply not researched or properly thought through. On Wednesday night there was discussion about creating new childrens’ homes on the Island. It was plain no research had been done on this.
This issue has been looked into a number of times and found not to be viable. It is also the case that two new private facilities, which the Council can use and which will cost less are in the process of being established. Officer advice about this was provided to Conservative councillors on Wednesday but was ignored.
I am not going to pursue proposals which are going to waste time on pointless feasibility studies and waste money that could be better used elsewhere, nor am I going to increase the council’s debt for vanity projects.
Where the budget does bind us is where money has been taken away by the amendments. I was therefore surprised that councillors Beston, Quirk, Outlaw and Brading, who represent Shanklin and Lake, voted for an amendment that takes away the money we had identified to repair the Osborne Steps. If the money is taken away for a proposal, as it has been in that case, then it simply prevents that proposal going ahead. The Alliance Administration recognises the importance of those steps to the local community in those areas and I am amazed that those councillors chose to put that work at risk by taking the funding for it away.
