4:37pm Tuesday 20th October 2009
By Oliver Evans
RATEPAYERS are being invited to help a council decide which services lose funding or get axed in a new online survey.
Visitors to Wycombe District Council’s website are invited to rate services to help cash-strapped bosses decide where next’s year budget is spent.
The web-based scheme is a first for the council, which controversially closed Holywell Mead outdoor swimming pool in this year’s budget.
See the link at the bottom of this story to take the survey.
Services residents can rate include crime prevention, CCTV, toilets, rubbish collection, parks, sport centres and Wycombe Museum.
They can rate as many or as few of the 18 services as they like – and are shown how much extra council tax they would pay based on their choices.
It also shows the consequences of increasing or reducing cash. Marking down sport centres, CCTV and parks, for example, says this could see them close.
The process is expected to take 10 to 20 minutes. Paper forms are available at council offices in High Wycombe, Princes Risborough and Marlow.
Bosses hope the move will help them make “difficult decisions” to scale back or cut services to save cash. The average ratepayer will give WDC about £124 for this year’s council tax.
In a stark warning, deputy leader Tony Green said: “We can’t guarantee any particular facility will remain.
“It would be dishonest to suggest there wouldn’t be reductions in services and staffing.”
Proposals will be on the table in December.
Along with the pool move, last year’s cuts saw public toilets closed and historic Bassetsbury Manor, used for functions, put on the market for £1m.
Cllr Green said: “It is to give people an opportunity to help us make the decisions that we know we are going to have to make.”
He said: “The residents of the district pay the council tax and it is quite reasonable they say where it should be spent.”
Conservative Cllr Green said he hoped more than 1,000 people would complete the survey and results would go on the council’s website. Residents must give their name and post code.
Cuts were needed as Government cash support was not enough and income was down from residents. Fewer are using council car parks because of the recession, for example.
The council wants no increase on its part of the total council tax bill, about a tenth, he added.
It was 3.2 per cent this year. Fire, police, parish councils and Buckinghamshire County Council bosses get the rest and the total bill is about £1,400.
Although the web programme allows users to set council tax above five per cent, in reality the council is forbidden from doing this by the Government.
Liberal Democrat group leader Councillor Brian Pollock welcomed the move.
He said: “I hope it will give an idea of the costs of the council as long as the people who log on are representative of the district.”
The county council, which gets the lion’s share of the final bill, is also consulting on its budget for next year.
Residents can respond via The Buckinghamshire Times, which is delivered to homes in the county.
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