Falkirk Council Labour Group depute leader used his budget debate speech to spell out why the Falkirk area shouldn’t have had to wait longer for vital investment.
”Thanks Provost,
The Labour amendment today is a budget that invests in the future of Falkirk’s People and Falkirk’s Services.
The later report outlines 3 options for the council to enable additional capital investment in our town: Additional Borrowing has been imprudent since the Tories crashed the economy and Service Concessions use has been hampered by being further from financial sustainability due to consistent underfunding by the SNP Scottish Government.
The other option is to ringfence 1% council tax rises for Capital Borrowing. This is the difficult choice that Falkirk Labour have accepted, this cannot be done if we allow ourselves to be forced into a council tax freeze, and the council must decide whether it does this now.
If we turn down the Falkirk Labour plan, we won’t only have to find an extra £2.35m extra from our revenue budget through more one-off funding and more cuts as proposed by the SNP administration. We will also be turning down £10m in investment and must find £900k somewhere in our already stretched
capital programme. Falkirk Labour’s plan puts £4m more to our Roads programme, we’ve listened to the People of Falkirk when they say our road condition is unacceptable and we’ve listened clearly to our officers when they say further substantial investment is required to stop the roads getting worse. We can only invest this with
Labour’s plan. We’ve put £1m forward for Road Drainage Improvement works, another priority clearly spelled out by our constituents who want to see substantial improvements to the drains. We can only change this with Labour’s plan.
Falkirk Labour has put £1m forward to start getting on with a shovel ready scheme to improve flood defences in Dunmore and to start progressing flood alleviation schemes in Westquarter, Letham, Reddingmuirhead, Maddiston and Larbert. We can only do this with
Labour’s plan. Further Investment of £1.5m in ICT that will keep thousands of PCs in our schools and takes pressure off our Connected Falkirk plan. A further £500,000 into corporate ICT so that we allow services to use their already strained budgets to deliver services rather than mitigate IT failings. We can only do this with
Labour’s plan. An additional £250,000 to a Net Zero Community Fund to allow Asset Transfer groups who can show reduced carbon emissions from their proposed works to access more funding. This gives a better chance for communities to retain financially and environmentally sustainable assets. We can only do this with
Labour’s plan. We have re-emphasised our commitment to recreation by investing an additional £250k to accessible playparks upgrades. This is a substantial commitment to making sure recreation can be available for all young people. We can only do this with
Labour’s plan. Putting £0.9m forward to absorb the atrocious SNP Government cuts to our Capital budget. This allows us to keep essential programmes progressing. We can only do this with
Labour’s plan. This is the choice we face. Falkirk Labour chooses to invest.
Thank you, Provost.“