Member Article

Coventry City Council presents budget to business - and says austerity isn't over

Coventry City Council has consulted with local businesses on its future budgets and gave them a stark warning – austerity isn’t over for local authorities.

The Council has a statutory duty to consult with the business community when setting budgets and does so through meeting the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce’s Coventry Branch.

More than half a dozen representatives from a range of companies – from manufacturing to training providers – met Barry Hastie, director of finance and corporate services, and Paul Jennings, finance manager, at the authority’s Friargate offices.

Hastie said that the City Council was consulting on budgets up to 2021 but that it was still unclear what funding would be received from Central Government beyond the next 12 months.

Despite that uncertainty, he outlined future development plans for the city and how the Council has had to become more business-like to generate new income streams.

That included investment in a second speculative office building at Friargate, the creation of The Wave in the city centre and bringing forward new plans for the City Centre South scheme.

He also earmarked Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture in 2021 as a source of potential investment into the city.

He said: “It’s difficult because we are consulting on our budget before we actually know what our budget is going to be.

“The Government is carrying out a Fair Funding Review, which is looking at how money is allocated across local authorities across the country. However, we are not planning for austerity to be over.

“Coventry City Council has had to look at other ways to generate income in order to deliver services and commercialisation is a journey we have been on and remain on.

“We are looking at a range of ways to turn capital resources into revenue and the fact that we are a growing city means we are generating more revenue that way.

“So we value the input and feedback from the business community into how we continue to make this an environment in which companies across all sectors can thrive.”

Peter Burns, former president of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, chaired the meeting.

He said: “We welcome the link with Coventry City Council as it is important for the local authority to meet businesses and gain their feedback on the city’s future plans.

“The Chamber has been supportive of the council’s moves over recent years to become more commercially active and to be proactive in creating the right conditions for businesses to grow.

“There are exciting times ahead for Coventry – from UK City of Culture in 2021 through to the creation of the UKBIC – and we, as businesses, must be ready to make the most of that.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .