Swindon Area Green Party has expressed concern after Keith Williams, the borough council’s cabinet member for finance, said this week that cash reserves used to balance the yearly budget may only last for another two or three years.
Councillor Williams said there were a number of ways the council could address the deficit, including suspending “non-essential spending” for the rest of the year.
Swindon Greens’ Bradley Williams, parish councillor for St Andrews, said:
“The borough council’s current financial situation would be a farce if it wasn’t so serious. The Conservatives who lead the council pride themselves on fiscal responsibility but are failing to balance the books, repeating the mistakes of their counterparts in Westminster who are trashing the UK economy.
“Swindon’s economy has been stagnating for years, and the revelation of this budgetary black hole shows that the Conservatives running the council are out of their depth, out of money and out of touch with the lives of local residents.
“We’re calling on the council to clarify the ‘non-essential spending’ that may be suspended and to lobby Swindon’s Conservative MPs to sort this situation out so we can avoid a return to the painful years of austerity, which caused so much hardship for the people of our town.”
