Preston City Council savings depend on how interest rates affect Animate borrowing plansThe cost of borrowing to help fund Preston’s new cinema and leisure development could dictate whether the city council has to make more than a million pounds of savings next year.Papers presented to the authority’s annual budget meeting reveal a potential £1.1m gap in the authority’s coffers from 2025/26.
However, Liberal Democrat group leader John Potter said the only reason his party was not “making a bigger issue” of the potential need for “massive savings” was because he trusted the advice of the council’s finance officers that it would be December before the authority had a full understanding of how interest rates were going to affect the situation.Preston is set to borrow £23.7m for the Animate project across 2023/34 and 2024/25, in addition to borrowing in previous years.
The budget risk register assesses the likelihood of increased borrowing and construction costs for all city centre regeneration schemes as high, with an equally high impact on the authority if they come to pass.Separately, there was a warning that the £16m Harris Museum refurbishment could be hit with “potential overspends”, with councillors set to be briefed on the situation in the near future. The price tag for the revamp of the Grade I-listed attraction leapt by £2.
“To do all that on our own, effectively…at a time when other councils are going cap in hand to the government they can’t balance their budgets, it’s an incredible achievement.” Lib Dem deputy group leader Neil Darby went further still, accusing Labour of committing “precious funds to pet projects and vanity schemes” like a community bank, which both his party and the Tories have long opposed. He urged the council to “get out now” of the yet-to-be-established North West Mutual – proposed to be formed with other local authorities in the region – and save the £1m it has earmarked for the project.
The cabinet member for community wealth building, Valerie Wise, mounted a staunch defence of the policy for which she is responsible, citing an academic analysis published last year showing that it was “making a real difference to the people of Preston, particularly… who haven’t got a huge amount of money, who have been suffering from ill health who have had poor mental health”.