Darlington Council cuts warning

The leader of Darlington Borough Council has hinted that “difficult decisions” must be made in the future as Labour reviews the authority’s finances – with more cuts likely.

Council Leader cllr Steve Harker continued his criticism of the council’s previous Conservative administration at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where he highlighted the tough task his party faces to balance the books.

The spat was sparked initially by a letter left by former Conservative leader cllr Jonathan Dulston, who said his party had left the local authority with reserves in excess of £23.3 million, £9.5 million more than the £13.8 million left by Labour in 2019. The recent controversial decision to scrap two-hours free car parking in the town was also made with finances in mind, Labour said, as it would have cost an extra £1.7m per year to fund.

“Members, cabinet and the wider council need time to understand what you left behind because there will be some difficult decisions, but I’m not going to rush into making them quickly,” cllr Harker told Cllr Dulston at the meeting.

And Labour members have been quick to shoot down any suggestion from opposition members that the council’s finances were in a sound position.

Cllr Harker added: “The budget we have available to us is £45m less than it was in 2010, we have about two thirds of the budget we had. We’ve had 10 years of endless government cuts year after year.

“If nothing changes we will run out of reserves by the end of the four year term, so what we’re walking into is far far worse. That’s why I keep saying we have a hell of a job to sort out what we’re doing.”

But despite the council’s financial position being laid bare, cllr Harker said there is no plan to introduce an emergency budget. ‘It’s not something I wish to rush into because of the scale of the problems we face,’ he added. “We need to make sensible decisions and frankly some of those decisions are going to take quite a long time so we don’t make cuts we come to regret later on.

On ending the free car parking offer, cllr Dulston said it is “a real hammer blow to residents, local businesses and our high streets” – but Labour said the authority’s finances, which it inherited from the Conservatives, were not equipped to fund it in the future and branded the free parking offer an “empty promise”.

Cllr Harker responded: “The decision to end free car parking was made by yourselves. You made clear that free parking would end in June. You spent several weeks saying that you would extend the scheme but if you actually planned to do that the decision should have been made months ago. Despite all your bluster it was evident that you put nothing in place to ensure it continued beyond June.

“It was crystal clear in one of the council reports that there was no real evidence to suggest that continuing with free parking would have an impact on footfall in the town centre. And this suggests that one of the reasons the buses are struggling is because people were convinced to move away from buses and use their cars to get to the town centre.”