Cash-strapped Derbyshire council could close town hall headquarters

Erewash Borough Council is having to take drastic action and make further cuts of £1.5 million this year in order to get a hold of its budget. One way in which it is seeking to achieve this is to “mothball” one of its two town hall headquarters in Ilkeston and Long Eaton.

The current situation in which the authority has two headquarters is a hangover from the council’s merger in 1974 of the former Ilkeston and Long Eaton district councils.

Since then the rivalry between Ilkeston and Long Eaton over political issues and funding allocations has been a key reason why both headquarters have continued to operate, despite the budget implications.

The proposed “mothballing” of one of the borough’s two town hall headquarters has been included in the coming year’s budget and listed as potentially saving between £80,000-£100,000 a year – with £25,000 to be saved in 2024

The issue was pitched by Tory councillor Steve Bilbie in June, last year, following his party’s defeat by Labour in May after 20 years in office. This came at a time when the council was debating closing 10 of its 14 public toilets, which was a policy agreed by the former Conservative administration and now being continued by Labour.

Within the budget are other key topics of debate, including the closure of Sandiacre Friesland Leisure Centre; the introduction of an annual £37 garden waste collection charge; and reducing the funding given to parish councils to £2,000 each.

Other measures include deleting two vacant neighbourhood warden posts; deletion of a press officer role; deletion of an anti-social behaviour officer role; reductions in reception opening hours; reducing events and the cost of stock at Erewash Museum; scrapping the contract with Erewash Community Transport; stopping all meeting refreshments; and changes to the annual fire display in West Park; and the closure of the West Park nursery depot.

The council is looking at raising its share of the overall tax bill by 2.99 per cent – £6.21 for a Band D property.

This would take Erewash’s chunk of your overall council tax bill from £207.62 to £213.83.

This is just a portion of your overall tax bill, with Derbyshire County Council taking up the vast majority, followed by the police and fire services and in some areas town and/or parish councils.

The borough council will have a budget of £13.6 million over the next year and needs to make £1.5 million in savings.

This financial position is set to worsen, with the funding gap due to grow to £2.5 million by 2026, £2.9 million by 2027 and £3.1 million by 2028.

Alongside this, the council’s general fund – emergency rainy day fund – is currently set to drop to minus £1 million by 2026, minus £3.9 million by 2027 and minus £7.1 million by 2028, while the council says it requires £2 million in the fund to ensure it can continue to safely run services.

This year alone the council is to use £1.3 million from its rainy day fund to ensure it sets a balanced budget and says the continued use of reserves is “not affordable nor sustainable”.

The council says it has forecast the current budget gaps and general fund shortfalls based on the authority setting maximum council tax increases for each of the next few years.

Not increasing council tax by the maximum possible amount this year – 2.99 per cent – would cost the authority £214,000 it says.

Council officials write: “The budget for 2024/25 is being set in uncertain times due to the uncertainty in the global and UK economy, in particular the effects of the high levels of inflation and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.”

On the potential for job cuts, the council has not ruled out the possibility of redundancies.

It writes: “The council’s aim, as far as possible, is to avoid staff redundancies but recognises that the extent of savings required means that this cannot be guaranteed. The council will endeavour to achieve this objective through deleting vacant posts, reducing agency provision, redeploying staff or negotiating with staff to find mutually beneficial arrangements e.g. changes to hours that suit both parties.”

It says 12 full-time roles would be scrapped through vacant hours and minor restructures, with further work needed but there are “very few” instances in which this will involve a loss of “filled posts”, the council says.