Labour’s Alternative County Council Budget, announced on Friday, puts emphasis on Supporting Children, Street Safety and a Green Lincolnshire
At Friday’s budget setting meeting of Lincolnshire County Council, Labour councillors proposed extra spending to tackle three key issues of concern to many local people.
Much more educational support for children and young people: There is no doubt that the schooling of many Lincolnshire pupils of all ages has been badly affected by the Coronavirus pandemic and it will take some time for them to catch up educationally. That’s why Labour will be proposing that £7 million more is spent in the next year on a catch up programme, providing emotional wellbeing and mental health support, and additional tuition for Looked After Children. The total cost will be £10.4 million
Better Street Lighting: Local people have been complaining about the lack of street lighting at night in our city, towns and villages . When part-night street lighting was introduced little account was taken of the likelihood of people not feeling safe when walking the streets late at night or first thing in the morning. To give more confidence to people, Labour will be proposing a programme costing £7 million over 3 years to both switch the lights back on and convert all street lights to LED.
The Green Agenda: We also want to invest £2.3 million in a Green Master Plan which will include solar canopies for car parks to produce electricity some of which would be used to deliver power at electric vehicle charging points. We also want to see put in place an energy efficiency programme at County Council maintained schools to reduce carbon emissions.
The Executive Director of Resources has confirmed that these schemes are viable.
It should be noted that as at 31 March 2022 the County Council is forecast to hold Total Earmarked Reserves of £202.627million.
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