Rates pressure is on

Rates pressure is on

28 January 2015

DOWN District’s flagship tourist event could be postponed for a year as part of a series of radical cost-cutting proposals being examined by local politicians.

Postponing the Festival of Flight, which attracts over 100,000 visitors a year, is being seriously considered by members of the new Newry, Mourne and Down Council as they struggle to peg back what could be a large rates rise.

A series of measures and cuts are being considered in a bid to reduce the rates rise which at present stands at eight per cent. D-Day for deliberations is Friday when the councillors must finally agree what will be the new authority’s first rates rise.

Other radical suggestions being considered as the council struggles to find £3m in savings include delaying the start of work on the new multi-million pound Down Leisure Centre for over nine months. Contractors were due on site in March.

It has also been proposed that the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade should be alternated between Downpatrick and Newry rather than each town staging its own parade, and proposals to cut grants to community groups are also being considered.

It is widely expected that councillors will plans to spend £500,000 buying the former St. Mary’s girls primary school in Newcastle as a possible site for a new leisure centre. The project has already been dropped from the council’s capital programme until at least 2020 but supporters had been hoping the council would go ahead and buy the site.

The problems for the new council have arisen for two reasons.

Firstly, both Down and Newry and Mourne Councils did not impose rates rises last year because councillors did not want to get criticism before the council elections in May.

The second problem is the size of the council’s capital development programme for 2015/16 which currently stands at a huge £21m.

Spending on new leisure centres in Downpatrick and Newry accounts for almost £15m of the programme while other smaller projects have pushed the total to almost unsustainable levels.

However, councillors from various areas are reluctant to allow their pet projects to be axed leaving council officials struggling to find savings and prevent a whopping rates rise.

There has been speculation that plans for a new £3m community/leisure facility in Saintfield could be axed, the Recorder understands the project, which this week secured formal planning approval, will proceed as planned.

As councillors pour over a raft of suggestions aimed at reducing the super council’s spend during its first year in business, it has emerged the initial rates rise was predicted to be in the region of 11 per cent.

A lot of tough talking lies ahead and behind-the-scenes negotiations and further budget pruning will intensify over the next 48 hours before councillors meet on Friday morning to decide on the scale of the rates increase. They will then make a recommendation to the shadow council which meets next Tuesday.

A number of councillors in Down say will reject any plan to postpone the Festival of Flight for a year. They are concerned the blue ribbon event could be lost to another town and may never return to Newcastle.

There are also concerns about delaying work on the new Down Leisure Centre, with some politicians arguing the project could suddenly become “less of a priority” for the super council if it is shunted backwards in the capital programme.

One concerned Down councillor told the Recorder  many politicians will not agree to postponing the Festival of Flight or alternating the St. Patrick’s Day parade between Downpatrick and Newry.

The councillor added: “Some tough decisions clearly lie ahead and agreeing on the scale of the rates increase is not going to be easy. It will be difficult to strike the right balance of planning for the future and keeping the ratepayer happy.”