Last Thursday, the 18th February, Wokingham Borough Council had its Budget Council meeting. This is the meeting where the Council set the Council Tax and decide on its spending for the the next year, with a plan for the following years.

The meeting was a four hour long virtual meeting, starting at 8pm- and after a couple of hours, it disintegrated to something similar to Handforth Parish Council’s efforts.

Our Council Tax payments need to go up, because of the large, Covid sized hole in the Council Finances. There has been no income from Leisure centres, only a tiny amount from car parking and licensing and the central government funding has not covered everything that we needed to do.

The key things that came out of this meeting were:

1) The Council’s borrowing will pass £3/4 Billion by the end of 2024.

2) There is no Covid Recovery Plan

3) Locating the right information in the Council Finance reports is a complex task.

4) Wokingham Town Centre Regeneration has, so far, not contributed any money to Wokingham Borough Council.

5) The current leadership ignores the constitution, which there to protect our residents too.

These are all things that we would seek to change if we were to get control of this council.