Browse Sections

• Education
• Special reports

Council budget concern

28/ 7/2005

HIGH Peak Borough Council has hit a cash-flow crisis with an estimated funding shortfall of £4m.

A meeting of the council executive revealed the big shortfall in the capital investment programme of work scheduled for between 2005-2010.

Council Leader David Lomax said: "It is worrying and we are going to face these great financial strains over the next few years. It is not good news for the long-term future unless we can secure funding or make more savings."

A three-year financial plan will now be drawn up to try and fund the capital programme although chief executive Peter Sloman is hopeful of raising funds in other ways.

He said: "We have got bits of land we are looking to get sales on, but with people sometimes resisting planning permission on certain pieces of land with town green applications and other complications restricting access it is never simple.

"My aspiration is that we would raise at least £2.5m. We face a choppy couple of years to deliver this programme and that makes capital sales critical."

Good news for the cash-strapped council was an underspend of more than half-a-million pounds from its general fund, to be spent on recycling and planning projects.