What to spend it on? £3.2m surplus for Stratford District Council

By Andy Mitchell, Local Democracy Reporter

THE councillor who holds Stratford District Council’s purse strings described a £3.2 million surplus as “an extraordinary opportunity” when laying out how it may be spent.

The district’s draft financial outturn showed that high interest rates had yielded £3.468m from the council’s investments, leaving it with an overall underspend of £3.277m for the financial year 2023-24 – more than twice what the authority had anticipated.

That followed the previous year’s £1.238m surplus, one that Cllr David Curtis (Lib Dem, Stratford Shottery), the district’s portfolio holder for resources, said at the time could be released to further “political priorities”.

While presenting the latest figures he acknowledged that falling interest rates meant it was “unlikely that this additional bonus will be repeated on anything like this scale”, but with inflation dropping as well, there was an opportunity to utilise some of the cash.

“Given the reduction of inflation to near the Bank of England’s target of two per cent, as I proposed last year, we may consider releasing some of this reserve to fund some of our policy priorities,” he told a meeting of the cabinet this week.

“This administration will not act in haste. We are not kids in a candy store, we will take time to carefully consider how best to invest for the future, to increase resilience in an uncertain world and to mitigate any adverse impacts of further cuts to local authority spending.

“We have an opportunity to invest in new technologies, increase capacity including partnerships with a third sector, perhaps more capacity building with parish councils to increase income generation, and to develop service improvements. We have an extraordinary opportunity.”

Cllr Sarah Whalley-Hoggins (Con, Brailes & Compton), leader of the opposition, referred to capital projects – particularly those funded by community infrastructure levy (CIL) payments from developers – that had been pushed back.

She argued that some of that money was responsible for the extra interest being accrued and projects that have yet to be seen through are likely to be impacted by increased costs the longer they lie in wait, making the case that funds should be directed their way.

It was an argument that was accepted by deputy leader Cllr George Cowcher (Lib Dem, Wellesbourne South), who also oversees the council’s work on planning and economic development.

He said: “I am grateful to Clr Whalley-Hoggins because she has mentioned something that I have mentioned privately to the portfolio holder [Cllr Curtis]. I am concerned that some of our reports are very comprehensive with very long lists of all the various allocations but we are not actually highlighting those where we need to take action.

“I am very keen that we begin to highlight those, particularly on (section) 106 agreements, to make sure we don’t lose any money at all through time going past.”