'Tough choices will be made' says leader of Medway Council

The leader of the Medway Council has told us there will be 'tough choices' in the coming months in order to save money.

In July, it was revealed that Medway council was on course for an overspend of more than 16 million.

To reduce this, the local authority recently listed thirty properties that it could put up for sale. However it confirmed it won't sell all of them.

To balance the book ahead of April's budget The Medway Council was granted fourteen million pounds after it's request for exceptional financial support. Vince Maple says he won't rule out the possibility of making the request again.

He said: "This is my home so I understand how people will look and say why are we having to pay more. There have had to be some difficult choices, we are in a difficult place.

"We will continue to work hard not only to reduce the amount of pressures on finances but also income generators as well and we are finding innovating ways to do this and to improve service.

And that's what we want to do, we want people to be proud of the services Medway Council offers but that sometimes means difficult choices to get to financial sustainability.

"However, we are hopeful moving forward the government will agree a multi year settlement with local councils which going forward will be beneficial to help us plan as we will know what money we are getting over more than 12 months.

"Though this year we think there will be an emergency one year settlement