Cheltenham council tax payers should be better off next year following two welcome Government announcements.
Cheltenham's MP, Alex Chalk, arranged a meeting last month between Cheltenham Borough Council’s (CBC) finance team and Government Ministers to discuss extra support for next year’s council tax settlement.
Following the meeting, the Government agreed to provide CBC with an extra £200k after agreeing to freeze the local authority’s baseline target for New Homes Bonus. The Borough Council will also receive an additional £43k in one-off funding.
Alex Chalk said “This windfall is an early Christmas present for Cheltenham. It should help the local council kickstart a number of new initiatives across the town. I’d like to pay tribute to the hard work of CBC’s finance officer, who set out a clear case and well-reasoned case to the Ministerial team. Their hard work and advice was enormously helpful in arguing Cheltenham’s corner.
Rishi Sunak MP, Minister for Local Government said “This settlement delivers for Cheltenham. I have received consistent representations from Alex Chalk and, most recently Cheltenham Borough Council, and I was delighted the Government was able to address them.”
Alex Chalk added “This announcement comes hard on the heels of an extra £1.35m for Gloucestershire’s special schools and High Needs provision. This is an issue that I have raised directly with the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s Question Time.
“Of course there’s much more work to do to sort out Gloucestershire’s historic education underfunding. But I’m delighted that our ongoing education campaign has won local schools some well-deserved extra cash for the next school year.”