COUNCIL MORE THAN £160MILLION IN DEBT WITH SOME LOANS EXTENDING UNTIL 2055

The Isle of Wight Council carries long-term loan debts to the equivalent of more than £1,000 per Islander, latest figures have revealed. At the end of 2023, the Isle of Wight Council owed £162.9 million in long-term loans — around £1,156 per Islander. The amount is calculated by dividing the council’s total debt by the number of people who live here (based on the Office for National Statistics’ entire Island population data). A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight Council said the money has been invested in ‘essential’ capital projects, acquisitions and other investments, not spent on day-to-day services. The total amount of long-term debt has fallen, over the last 6 months, because a £5million bank loan has been paid off, saving the authority about £76,000 a year. More than 30 historic long-term loans came through the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) – an arm of the Treasury. As of March 2023, County Hall was paying off 8 loans dating to the 1990s, 17 from the 2000s and 9 taken up between 2016 and 2020, according to figures from the PWLB. Some of the loans will mature this year, while others will take a further 3 decades. The longest loan repayment will run until 2055. No new long-term PWLB loans have been taken out since March 2020 and any future borrowing would have to meet stringent rules, with costs covered by offset income or savings. A national investigation by the BBC Shared Data Unit recently revealed how much debt local councils are in — reporting a staggering UK-wide £97.6 billion as of September 2023 – averaging out at £1,455 per person.