The local Member of Parliament for Eastleigh, Mims Davies, has slammed Eastleigh Borough Council for racking up millions upon millions of pounds worth of debt, potentially putting local services under threat.
Concerns over Eastleigh Borough Councils potentially risky investments using tax payers’ money were most recently highlighted in The Times newspaper.
Commenting, Eastleigh MP Mims Davies said:
“I understand that the Lib Dems on Eastleigh Borough Council are keen to fund the 8% pay rise that they awarded themselves this year, however, more and more of my constituents are realising the crippling level of debt that this small council has now amassed.
“With nearly a quarter of a BILLION pounds worth of debt - £8000 for every household in the borough - and having borrowed twelve times its budget, Eastleigh Borough Council must stop burying these decisions in exempt business at Cabinet meetings where the majority of Councillors and members of the public have no sight of these decisions being taken and the risk that they pose to local services.
“I have recently met with Local Government Minister Rishi Sunak to raise my concerns, and was unsurprised to learn that Eastleigh Borough Council was already well known to him and his Department, and I welcome that the government has implemented new guidelines aimed at discouraging councils from borrowing money to profit from investments.”
“Yet again, the ball is in the court of our local Lib Dem Councillors, and like many of my constituents, I hope that for once they will be open and transparent, and explain these risky investments, which have left this small borough council as the fourth most indebted of its size!”
Also commenting, Leader of the Conservative Group on Eastleigh Borough Council, Cllr Judith Grajewski said:
“Having just gone through the painful implementation of the Future Eastleigh programme to cut £4.7M out of the revenue budget, we’re now told that the Council is to make further cuts of £2.5M by 2023/24 through a range of so-called efficiencies. At the same time borrowing is to increase to over half a billion pounds. Probably more given this Council’s propensity for always borrowing more each year than it forecasts at the beginning of the year.
“External interest payable on debt is set to rise from over £3M this year to an estimated £8.3M in 2023/24 which will be more than the total forecast income from Council Tax of £7.345 million. So when people want to know where their Council Tax is going – now we know. Conservatives have been warning about the level of borrowing for some time.”