North Ayrshire Conservatives, whose 9 members form the main Opposition on North Ayrshire Council, today agreed to support the Budget proposed by the SNP Administration.
We could not support the Labour proposals which would mean Council Tax being spent on Energy generation, Community Wealth Building, and other projects with which we did not agree and would have increased the deficit for the following year.
Although we have political differences with the SNP, it is important for the electorate for us to work together to agree on a sensible budget moving forward. We therefore agreed to support the SNP administration budget on the basis that there would be a council tax freeze for the coming year.
We felt it important that the council tax payer should see their money being spent in their communities and so our budget proposals included two of our asks. To provide extra expenditure for the roads department of £750,000 to deal with the continual problems with pavement and road maintenance. The removal of the proposed charge for "brown bin collection" as we felt that this was an important free service for residents and contributes to increased recycling rates for the council.
Unfortunately, the SNP Scottish Government continues to underfund councils. It makes it difficult to achieve a balanced budget without resorting to excessive cuts which become more likely in future years.
Tom Marshall
Conservative Group Leader
