Cheshire East relying on town councils for top-ups

Cash-strapped Cheshire East has already asked some town councils for top-ups to help keep services such as leisure centres running.

Cllr Ken Edwards (Image: Cheshire East Council) Cllr Ken Edwards (Bollington, Lab) said he feared this was a practice which was going to happen more frequently in the future.

And members of the finance sub-committee agreed last night (Thursday) that, if that was the case, there needed to be a process by which the lower tier authorities were consulted well in advance of their own budget setting process.

Cllr Edwards said: “At the moment, there seems to be a lot of what I would call ad hockery and sometimes shockery going on.

“Just to give you an example, we did have, in Bollington, a sudden request for £59,400 in the middle of the financial year if we wanted to keep the household waste recycling centre open until January 2025 .

“We couldn't respond to it in any way because, obviously, it would have destroyed our financial plan.”

Cllr Stewart Gardiner (Image: Cheshire East Council) Knutsford councillor Stewart Gardiner (Con) agreed with Cllr Edwards there should be a proper process put in place.

“I think it's very important that, as the primary authority, we do have a structure under which we liaise with town and parish councils over matters where we are expecting them to fund things that they would not normally fund,” he said.

Cllr Gardiner pointed out town and parish councils had to set their budgets in January, but Cheshire East didn’t set its budget until February ‘which means if we [town councils] are discussing what we might put in our budget, we need to know more in advance of that’.

He added: “That certainly caused a problem for Knutsford Town Council last year, which is why I proposed that we [Knutsford Town Council] put in a surplus reserve in case we might be asked to fund things after the date on which we have to set our budget.”