'Difficult decisions will be made' - District Council leader Phil Grove writes for the Observer - The Malvern Observer

'Difficult decisions will be made' - District Council leader Phil Grove writes for the Observer

Malvern Editorial 25th Jan, 2016 Updated: 20th Oct, 2016   0

JUST before Christmas we received our financial settlement from the Government for the next four years and the speed at which our government funding is being reduced has surprised us.

We knew it would disappear by 2019/20 but we didn’t expect to suffer such heavy reductions over the first three years – we will lose £700,000 over that period – which will require us to make some difficult decisions.

The good news is we’re determined not to cut the services you all rely on, wherever possible, and instead we have a new business plan and a new strategy which will be discussed next week at Executive Committee.

This will help us ensure we continue to do the things that matter to you while closing the budget gap we face of £1.8million by 2018/19.




We intend to do this through a combination of reducing management costs, transforming the way services work to make them more efficient, working jointly with other councils to make savings – particularly Wychavon – use of the private sector where appropriate and selling our services to other councils and organisations.

Against that backdrop is our new strategy which contains three core goals – to build stronger and healthier communities, deliver economic prosperity and to make the most of our superb environment.


There are then a number of actions we have set ourselves to complete over the course of the next five years to meet those aims. They include everything from delivering more affordable housing to helping businesses to grow and boosting the visitor experience to the district.

Once the strategy and business plan have been finalised in February they will be available on our website. Please do take the time to look at them.

Since 2010 we’ve saved £3.3 million and managed to protect essential front line services and I’m confident we can do so again. I can’t guarantee we can protect everything. As I said before, there will be difficult decisions to make.

But I didn’t come into politics to cut things and I’ll do everything I can to avoid having to start now.

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