£600,000 referendum war chest unanimously approved as fire service budget for Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes is deemed “unsustainable”

Councillors at Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority believe their budget is “unsustainable” as they feel forced to dip into their reserves to the tune of £1.1 million this year and could run out of money in a few years time.

Cllr Lesley Clarke OBE (Cons, Buckinghamshire), who was chairing this morning’s (Wednesday) meeting of the full fire authority said that the budget isn’t sustainable.

She proposed ring-fencing £600,000 which was the cost of a police budget referendum in Bedfordshire a few years ago.

She said that in the meantime the fire authority would continue to lobby the Government for them to be able to increase their share of the council tax by an average of £5 for the year.

“We can’t exist on our reserves, everybody knows that,” she said.

The current rules only allow the fire service to put its share of the council tax up by two per cent without having to hold a referendum.

Chief fire officer Jason Thelwell vowed that officers would be campaigning to be able to increase council tax by £5 a year in 2022.

He added that an alternative might be to look at services.

Cllr Anders Christensen (Lib Dem, Buckinghamshire) said he doubted that people would vote for higher taxes.

Cllr Douglas McCall (Lib Dem, Newport Pagnell South) pointed out that the Conservative run authority had decided in the past to cut their council tax.

“We may have no choice but to have a referendum,” he said. “We’ve got to get the money from somewhere.”

He said if the choice was between “closing fire stations or paying £5 more, people will go for the £5.”

Cllr Clarke said decisions made a “long time ago” were the right thing to do at the time but if it came to a referendum they would need to say that £5 extra is less than 10p a week.

But Cllr Tim Mills (Cons, Buckinghamshire) said he wasn’t sure if anyone would listen to the arguments,

“If people are hard up, they won’t bother to vote in favour, however much it i.”

Milton Keynes Council leader Cllr Pete Marland (Lab, Wolverton) said if the alternative was the closure of fire stations he would support a referendum.

“It is preferable to closing fire stations,” he said.

Buckinghamshire Lib Dem Cllr Steven Lambert said: “At some point we are going to have to bite the bullet because the risk is we are going to run out of revenue.”

Buckinghamshire Labour Cllr Robin Stuchbury said: “We can’t risk the well-being of our residents, we would be butchering beyond what we would wish to do.”

The resolution to put aside £600,000 for a possible referendum was supported.

The councillors also unanimously supported increasing the council tax by 1.99 per cent from this April. Average Band D residents will pay a total of £67.16 for fire services.