Steamy goings-on (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Steamy goings-on

SWINDON COUNCIL FEATURE: Watching Swindon Council's to-ings and fro-ings can be more entertaining than your favourite soap. MICHAEL LITCHFIELD looks at what really went on at the recent tax-setting meeting.

ONE-NIGHT stands are a regular feature of Swindon Council budget meetings.

Two opposing parties jump in bed together to bring grief to the incumbent administration.

Then, with expediency and opportunism safely tucked under the pillow, it is back to hating one another for the rest of the year.

That's politics for you, Swindon-style love and divorce compressed into a three-hour timeframe. There is nothing more lasting or meaningful to the relationship than convenience.

The steamy saga so far:

The ruling Conservatives proposed a budget that would amount to a 6.3 per cent rise.

The Labour and Liberal Democrats brokered a deal that would put an extra per cent on the increase.

The vote was tied at 28-28.

The Labour-Lib/Dem financial programme won the night through the casting vote of Labour Mayor Derek Benfield (Covingham and Nythe). High Noon drama that one has come to expect from hung council shoot-outs.

Of course there was much rancour and vented spleens from the Tory benches and, indeed, the public gallery but cloak and dagger, clandestine deals are the facts of life, the birds and bees, of precarious hung council living.

In the days leading up to the tax-setting budget, council leader Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawn) pleaded with Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford not to "cap" Swindon.

But as soon as his group lost the vote he said: "If Mr Raynsford is to retain any credibility, he must intervene and cap this Labour budget. The people of this town are not prepared to stomach this level of taxation."

In letters to 65 councils, including Swindon, Mr Raynsford warned that the Government would not hesitate to intervene and impose a budget on any local authority that did not keep down rises to "low single figures".

Now Frank Avenell, leader of the Swindon Fairness for Pensioners Group, has already written to the town's two MPs on behalf of his 3,500 members demanding that the Government carries out its threat.

"I am angry, depressed and disgusted," he fumed.

"If Mr Raysnford has any integrity at all, he must cap Swindon Council after this travesty.

"The 6.3 per cent proposed by the Conservatives was still breaching Mr Raynsford's directive, but it was more acceptable than what we have now a shady deal by Labour and the Liberal Democrats that's an insult to a town that's had more clobbering over the years with high taxation than it's prepared to take.

"We're hoping that the Government has the guts to go through with its threats and to force Swindon Council to lower its tax rise.

"If this doesn't happen, I shall be calling an emergency meeting of our members to see what action we should take.

"We're in fighting mood and we're not going to quietly accept this monstrous raid on our pockets.

"I'm most concerned, though, that much of the additional one per cent tax to be levied will go towards funding many of the community voluntary organisations that have been receiving council grants for years without any scrutiny."

He highlighted the annual £26,500 paid to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, £20,000 to European initiatives, £10,000 for "various regeneration grants", £95,000 for the Wiltshire Law Centre and £123,000 to the Swindon Racial Equality Council.

"Surely the elderly and vulnerable residents of Swindon should come before a south coast orchestra?" he said. "It's absolutely outrageous that this is where our money's being squandered and doled out willy-nilly.

"European initiatives and regeneration grants could be masking a multitude of sins. The problem is these grants aren't properly examined they're just rubber-stamped each year."

But Swindon South MP Julia Drown believed it important that the voluntary sector was supported by the council.

"Although Swindon has experienced two large rises in recent years, this Labour budget would seem to be reasonable," she said.

"Swindon's council tax is still below average and although people on fixed incomes may face problems, street-cleaning, recycling and recognising the value of voluntary groups are worthy causes that the Labour group is championing."

Swindon North MP Michael Wills did not wish to comment.