Shrewsbury council tax rise plan to fund youth work

At a meeting of Shrewsbury Town Council's finance and general purposes committee on Monday night a recommendation was made to protect the provision of youth services across Shrewsbury.

The town council has been running the service, now renamed Young Shrewsbury, for 18 months but faces the prospect of a 50 per cent cut in support from Shropshire Council. This is a reduction from £81,000 to more than £40,000.

But by increasing the council tax for households across Shrewsbury by a small amount, the council is suggesting it will be able to make up the shortfall.

The proposed rise will increase the charge on Band D properties from £39.89 to £41.48 per year while for the most common Band B property the effect will be to raise charges by a little over 2p per week. That is from £31.03 to £32.27 per year.

It was announced this year that the youth service department in Shrewsbury could have its budget slashed by 50 per cent by Shropshire Council in a cost-cutting exercise.

But in October Councillor David Minnery, Shropshire Council's cabinet member responsible for the services, said he wanted the authority's scrutiny committee to look at ways of continuing to provide the same level of service.

The announcement came after the council's full cabinet meeting where members were given a paper recommending that funding for youth services was cut from £234,950 to £117,250 for next year.

Sessions in Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Market Drayton, Whitchurch and the Rea Valley would have been hit.

Leader of the town council, Alan Mosley, who represents the Castlefields and Ditherington ward, said: "We are all proud of the efforts of our officers in making Young Shrewsbury such a resounding success and we want to ensure the future of their vital work with our young people.

"However, we do not want to jeopardise the quality of our other services which are already providing very high value for money. Hence, we are highly confident that council tax payers will accept a minimal increase in the precept to finance this gap in Young Shrewsbury's funding."

Councillor Mosley said: "Since 2013, and despite repeated cuts in our funding overall, it is a credit to our staff that this council has kept the Council Tax precept static.

"However, we are committed to protect and promote crucial services.

"We rank our work with young people of the highest importance and as we are sadly faced with significant cuts in that budget we have to adjust our precept on this occasion to fill the £41,500 shortfall, solely for Young Shrewsbury."

A decision to cut funding for youth services on a scaled basis was made in 2014.

Last year Shropshire Council stopped providing the services directly and started providing money for other organisations to deliver the services.

The recommendation will need to be approved by the full town council.