County fears new squeeze on cash from Whitehall

Government plans to change the way it dishes out grants to local authorities look set to impose a ferocious financial squeeze on West Sussex.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Oct 2005, 17:08 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 03:35 BST

Indications are that the county council can once again expect to receive one of the lowest allocations in the country.

And given that the government has said it will 'cap' any council tax increases above a certain level, county councillors could find themselves confronting the prospect of drastic cutbacks in services.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The shape of things to come is set out in a new Government consultation paper on local government grant distribution. And it appears certain that the pattern for the future will follow one already established in recent years, with a switch of resources from Conservative controlled authorities in the South East, including West Sussex, to Labour areas in the Midlands and North.

West Sussex county treasurer Bryan Robinson said the county council's grant had increased on average by just over four per cent during the past three years. The best treated county, Cambridgeshire, averaged more than nine per cent.

Full story in West Sussex Gazette, October 6

Related topics:CambridgeshireWest Sussex GazetteLabour