2024/2025 FODDC DRAFT BUDGET

We fully support this council being ambitious and being ballsy enough to take the lead on difficult and testing issues.
Indeed it was Progressive Independents who changed the way the Council worked over 6 years of Leadership ,so that it did just that  and so that it and its community's voices were heard. 

Progressive Independents made those big steps and gained unprecedented levels of grant funding and  opportunities, we changed the landscape for the council. 

What was supposedly impossible, we made possible.

So we have no fear of leading, of going a different route to others and thinking outside the box.

Progressive Independents didnt shy away from making decisions that were in the interests of the council but were not universally popular, that is part of Leadership.

But at all times you must do this without overstretching your resources or biting off more than you can chew.

Every penny spent must be a worthwhile spend that brings a positive return of some kind to the tax payer.

The future of both the district and the council must be the priority of any leadership,
What can be seen in the draft budget proposed by the Green Party is that they are one dimensional and it must be said ,extremist. 

The ONLY priority is climate emergency, nothing else matters , everything else is not only secondary but almost irrelevant.

Such is the importance of the Climate Emergency , this approach is understandable. No one denies that fact.

Policies and the way the world, business and all of us , act and treat the planet we live on need to change, that has been proven by many including the Green Party.

And that can be achieved , it can be a legitimate ambition,

but only :
IF YOU ARE ABLE AND HAVE THE INFLUENCE TO DO SO.

The FODDC and the district DO NOT have the ability nor the influence to make the changes required to save our planet.
That is down to much larger organisations, to governments, to large businesses, to larger councils.

All FODDC can strive to do is “ our bit”. and work alongside senior partners to do things the right way. 

That is a District Councils role

And FODDC can only do our “bit” if it is in place to do so and that means doing everything that is our responsibiity in the right way.

This budget is making this council over reach in terms of climate emergency.
It is blinkered and ignores the other and “reachable” objectives of the communities and the district in order to priotritise an environmental position it is not capable of reaching.
It demonstrates a complete ignorance of the needs for businesses and people that the Council is in place to represent while being idealistic and weaponising the Climate emergency.
It fails to bring growth to the district, threatens services and the very sustainability and future of the Council. It is “fantasy “ local Government, and extreme environmentalists “wet dream” budget.
It does not take into account the potentially vast costs involved in their decision to withdraw  from its shared services agreement. No one knows what those costs might be.

This isn't a playtime or a movie, or a tick box excercise and learning model fopr the national Green Party ,its important and just grasping figures out of the air such as the proposed 300% rise in parking charges, without any examination on what that might do to our town centres  and their businesses shows incompetence in the extreme.

If this budget is supported by those political groups who currently prop up the Green administration and put the leadership of the Council in Green control , (The Labour group led by Cllr Di Martin, The LIb Dems led by Cllr Gill Moseley and the Independent Group led by Cllr Phillip Burford) then they too will once again be exhibiting a total disregard for the entire district and its people.

The Progressive Independents will vehemently oppose this budget that is dangerous in that it does not address the needs of the council tax payers, it uses vast amounts of council tax funding on subjects that demands the leadership of many other bigger and influential organisations and puts at risk the very future of the FODDC.

We hope and urge all businesses, town councils and individuals to do the same