The Liberal Democrat Group on Oldham Council will propose that in this year’s budget more money is invested on highway and environmental improvements to make the borough’s streets safer and cleaner.

The Shadow Cabinet Member for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Cllr John McCann, said:

“I would like to thank Council officers and my colleague Councillor Diane Williamson for their invaluable support in putting together these proposals.”

“The Liberal Democrat Group recognises that once again this year the Labour Administration has been forced to cut spending and services as the grant from central government has once more been squeezed, and the situation will not improve whilst the Conservatives remain in office. Local government continues to be one of the biggest victims of this Government’s austerity strategy and things will only get worse; by 2021 Oldham will lose all of it’s central Government grant.”

Labour has again proposed that Council Tax bills rise by 2% to pay for improvements to adult social care and a further 1.99% for other services.

Cllr McCann commented: “The Liberal Democrats will once again support this rise as it will at least raise some more money for services, but we also think it is important to focus every penny that we have on core services. As well as revenue-raising, our strategy is to continue to identify savings in back-office bureaucracy and waste to free up money to support the services that are most valued by our ratepayers.”

This year, once more the Liberal Democrats are proposing measures that will generate almost £675,000 in savings each year – from reducing publications, printing and advertising, to tackling absenteeism and reducing expenditure on employing agency staff. This is money that they want to spend on better roads, cleaner streets and more youth outreach provision.

Cllr McCann said: “We recognise that this is only a relatively small amount compared to the many millions that this Council has been forced to save, but this modest amount could nonetheless be a game-changer – it would provide us with the revenue we need to borrow over £5 million to invest in our key highways, with enough left over to radically improve our gully-cleaning service, restore a free Bulky Bobs waste collection service and pay for more youth outreach provision to engage with young people in our communities.”

The Liberal Democrats are calling for over £460,000 from the additional savings that they have identified to go to:

• Fund a £5.5 million investment programme to tackle the repairs backlog on the borough’s main and secondary highways
• Employ four more staff and an extra vehicle on gully-cleaning across the borough
• Restore the free Bulky Bob bulk waste collection service to the public
• Increasing the provision for youth outreach workers