Southwark council now introducing a ray of charges, strapped cash, or generating more??

[trinidad]

The London Borough of Southwark have or are proposing extra charges in the borough, which has an affect of ED residents.

New charges to park at the lovely parks we have.

New charges for the brown bin / brown sacks.

Proposed new charges for a CPZ in the ED and West Peckham areas.

Increase Council tax bill

Is this the start of a strapped cash local authority, or an alternative to generate cash?

[JohnL]

All councils are short of cash - the question is how do they generate it if government isn't providing enough and council tax can't be increased by more than a certain amount..

Do you generate cash from things people choose to do or things people need or even fines for littering and smoking or can we go after business somehow,if so what size ?

We (the residents of Southwark) should decide this so what we need is truth at the local elections (maybe ?).

[Abe_froeman]

Charging motorists is a good way...

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/planning-policy-and-transport-policy/transport-planning?chapter=2

The council charged motorists ?15m last year making a ?6m profit out of them.

[TheArtfulDogger]

The alternative when a council is short of funds is to look internally to see where savings can be made

E.g. Reduce top executives pay , golden handshakes and so on

Or stop rewarding failure , caused by departments spending all their funding to ensure they retain the same amount for next year, classic example is highways who implement a raft of unwanted works at the end of each tax year but plead poverty when pot holes need to be repaired. Why not try asking them to bank unused money each year, still get the same funds next and when money is needed it's in the bank ? (I realise it's a change in legislation and attitude)

There are possibly many savings and ideas to be had to maximise the existing inwards revenue, but sadly a council isn't run like a business or charity, it seems to be have the ability to spend more then it generates, expecting central government, residents and businesses to pay more for "essential" services and bail them out.

On a simple note, still can't work out why they relocated to a purpose built office in London Bridge, the most expensive area for real estate and associated charges when it would have been cheaper in the south of the borough , like Peckham or Camberwell, with the benefit of council officers purchasing items (lunch, shopping....) close to where they work thus benefitting the local economy and strategic growth of these areas. Mad decision

[rupert james]

When they did locate all services to Tooley Street they found the building was too small and so had to get a another building in New Cross. So Tooley Street was North and New Cross South.

Many of the closed neighbourhood housing offices were sold off.

Also I believe I read somewhere that Southwark is purchasing commercial properties for revenue.

There does seem to be a large pot of money somewhere to be able to do this.

[alice]

Has Conway lost their contract?

[malumbu]

So much has been wasted in the economy on Brexit so far I don't see things improving in the next few years. No excuse for wasting local funds but I expect that LAs will continue to be hit by central funding.