Key spending packages worth £13million will be considered by the Isle of Wight Council’s cabinet this Thursday amid ‘unprecedented uncertainty’.
The Alliance administration is looking to turn on the spending taps for a raft of capital investments as part of its 2025/26 budget, which was unveiled last week.
County Hall has proposed £2.4million for Schools Capital Maintenance, £600,000 for Leeson Road’s monitoring and closure system, £2.4million for highways improvements, safety schemes and maintenance and £1.1million on a new waste fleet.
Other investments include £1.9million for adapting disabled residents’ homes to enable them to be independent for longer, £400,000 on highway drainage schemes to reduce flooding and £35,000 on new Floating Bridge generators, as previously reported by Island Echo.
The council has also earmarked £1.4million for adults and children’s social care Case Management Systems, £300,000 for renewing the Rights of Way network and £400,000 for coastal protection.
A cabinet report due to be presented at Thursday’s meeting said the investment would ‘improve school facilities’, ‘provide further support to vulnerable residents’ and meet ‘essential transport safety and highway improvements’.
It said:
“The capital programme makes proposals for new capital expenditure of £13 million, of which £2.8 million is from Corporate Capital Resources, therefore levering in borrowing capability, reserves and external funding amounting to £10.2 million.”
The paper said the budget was being proposed at a time of ‘financial and economic volatility’ and ‘unprecedented uncertainty in terms of future cost and funding’.
Council leader Phil Jordan said:
“Despite the challenging financial climate, our commitment to protecting and improving our community remains steadfast. We are dedicated to ensuring our community continues to thrive, even in the face of economic pressures.
“One of our top priorities is the protection of our coastal areas. By investing in coastal infrastructure, we are taking proactive steps to safeguard our coastal regions from erosion and flooding.
“This draft budget is about balancing our financial responsibilities with the needs of our community, and I believe it strikes that balance effectively.”
I hope they have put plenty aside for their pensions.
You think pensions come out of a spending budget?
Ye bring it on we love giving you our money..for you to spunk it away..
Shouldn’t the highways schemes, waste and drainage systems be coming out of the pockets of the private companies who own and run them? As for the ‘case management systems’ (IT) for social care, maybe the money would be better spent on staff? Yet again these are middle layer costs we should be looking very closely at. For example, a top-notch IT Systems Management specialist can be employed for 80k a year to work largely with the infrastructure already in place; more often than not it simply needs streamlining. I’d like to know who told them that a shiny new system was needed, and also who that person knows who could sell it. Or maybe that was the deal to get the funding.
More money I suppose to spend on the so called illegal refugees already placed on the island. In other words them before us.
Get over it, Reform lost the election
Lol
Can the Council afford this? The answer is NO.
They can with their Council tax increases
That will generate millions of pounds
Not to mention the parking charges and
the public toilet fees.
We are paying for everything
Soon they will impose a F@rt Tax
I would like to see money spent on speed Camera’s and
the installation of Speed Humps
We need to STOP the uneducated Numpty’s speeding
Also whilst at it STOP vehicles parking on the Pavements
along Regent Street Shanklin outside the filthy takeaways
and stop vehicles parking on the Double Yellow Lines
outside Sandown Pier
Not to mention the Numpty motorist who parks on the
Zig Zags outside the Barbers in Sandown opposite
Boots
Who does jordan think he is king canute, you cannot fight nature no matter how much you spend on coastal protection,
All part of the climate scam, better to be seen
doing something, than doing nothing.
Lol
Where is the £6.3 million you were given to maintain and upkeep the roads on the prison estates. Misappropriation comes to mind.
I wonder how much their allowances are increasing.