Politics

preston town hall entrance

City Council cabinet – plans to fill the £2.5 million black hole in budget

3rd, February 2012 by

Preston City Council have agreed to plans to increase council tax by 3.5% in Wednesday’s budget meeting. Councillors met at the Town Hall to discuss the draft budget proposals and Labour has put forward its plans to start to fill a £2.5m black hole in its budget over the next five years. The main area agreed upon would see a council tax increase of 3.5% [...]

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preston town hall entrance

Analysis of Preston Council Budget: Where has money been saved?

31st, January 2012 by

Preston City Council have released the details of their new budget proposal, including a proposed rise in council tax by 3.5%. Yesterday I took a look at what the council intend to spend money on over the next four years, and today I’m going to look at the areas in which they intend to save money. Click on the graph below to compare figures across [...]

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preston town hall entrance

Analysis of Preston Council Budget: What’s the money going to be spent on, and where?

30th, January 2012 by

Preston City Council have released the details of their new budget proposal, including a proposed rise in council tax by 3.5%. Ed Walker has already covered the key points in his story last week, but I’m going to take a look at the specific numbers involved in the council’s savings and spending areas. In the consultation document the council emphasise the importance on Guild year, [...]

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budget wordle

Preston council budget: The key words

27th, January 2012 by

We’ve run the council’s budget proposal from 2012 to 2016 into Wordle, which crunches the 80 odd pages to find the most commonly used phrases. This gives you an at-a-glance look at what the most used words are by the Labour administration in how they plan to spend your money. What do you make of the graphic? What does it tell you? Let us know [...]

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preston covered market

Opinion: Labour budget is built on non-commitment

26th, January 2012 by

Tax and spend, tax and spend, borrow your way out of trouble and don’t worry about tomorrow, that will be someone else’s problem. Yes, folks, Labour’s back in power in Preston. All over England, local authorities are tightening their belts and deciding it would be totally unacceptable in the present economic climate to increase Council Tax. Not here in Preston, though, where Labour are slamming [...]

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tithebarn area

Council tax set to rise by 3.5% as Preston tightens its belt

26th, January 2012 by

A council tax rise for Preston households is on the table as the city decides how to spends its money up until 2016. The three-year financial plan for Preston City Council, due to be discussed at cabinet on Wednesday, sets out how the Labour administration plan to spend millions of pounds on improving the city, while struggling to balance the books. Preston Town Hall will [...]

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preston town hall entrance

Opinion: This is a Preston council budget aimed at promoting fairness in our city

25th, January 2012 by

You don’t need me to tell you again just how much government grant Preston City Council has lost since the coalition took control in Westminster – almost half – from £19 million to £11 million. So many people are in the same situation however, that I can understand it when people say ‘get on with it, just cut some of those cushy council jobs and [...]

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bae plane

BAE to build Typhoon fighters in Warton for Government of Oman

24th, January 2012 by

BAE Systems are in talks to supply the Government of Oman with Typhoon fighter aircrafts. The Typhoons would be built at BAE’s Warton site, which was the subject of a debate in the House of Commons last year. From the story in the Independent: The company said it had mitigated 900 of the compulsory redundancies across Warton and another site at nearby Samlesbury, so out [...]

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preston bus station

Signature milestone reached for Save Preston Bus Station epetition as deadline nears

15th, January 2012 by

A petition demanding a city-wide referendum on the future of Preston Bus Station closes tomorrow. The epetition has attracted nearly 1,500 signatures as campaigners attempt to stop the demolition of one of Preston’s iconic landmarks. John Wilson, who tweets as @SaveBusStation, tabled the petition in November. It has now passed the 1,350 signatures it needs to ensure councillors have to debate the issue at a [...]

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solar panel at uclan

Preston councillors blast government over solar panel pricing review

4th, January 2012 by

Two Preston councillors have accused the government of “strangling the solar industry at birth” by making cuts to the price of energy sold from solar panels. A motion tabled at a full council meeting last month by Moor Park’s Labour councillor David Borrow and Larches Labour councillor Sam Gardiner was approved and a letter sent from the council to Whitehall. The letter, sent to Energy [...]

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