North Northants Budget 2023
On Thursday 23rd February, the council set its budget for the financial year ahead. We have been fighting for a few key things, including renewable energy grants so homeowners can reduce their energy bills, more officers to improve housing conditions and free/cheaper bulky waste collection to reduce flytipping.
Last year we put forward a number of proposals (see below for detail*) and in this year since we have one of our proposals which has been adopted – we now have 3 electric refuse trucks on order as a council, which is incredibly exciting. This is a great way to show we are leading the way in North Northants, and it will cut our carbon footprint as an organisation by a huge amount, as waste vehicles consume high amounts of fossil fuels.
This year we are pushing for renewables support for the community and businesses, and improving housing quality, as we have seen first hand how much poor housing we have in our community that is not in a liveable state. We need homes that are fit to live in, and cheaper energy bills so that people can afford to live – renewable energy sources are a great way to do that.
Summary:
- We challenged the Green Waste charge being brought in in April and it was confirmed that this is to generate revenue, and it deemed acceptable by the Executive as many other councils also have this charge. We don’t believe this second tax is a fair solution to harmonising this service and will continue to raise the concerns of residents, and push for this to be reconsidered.
- What we asked for this year: (a) two EPC rating officers, one to assess our own housing stock (so we can put together a plan of improvement and work on retrofitting this stock, and another to work on EPC enforcement for private housing, as we know that so much of the private housing stock is in poor condition. Housing with an EPC rating of a certain level must be insulated by law, so putting more resource behind enforcing this will ensure more people have warmer homes fit to live in, and cheaper energy bills alongside. (b) Grants for businesses to install renewable energy onsite, to improve business resilience to rising energy costs and boost locally owned energy. (c) Bulky waste collection charge to be reduced or made free for low income households, to help reduce flytipping and ensure that these items were properly disposed of and recycled. (d) Look to increase funding for community centres across North Northants, not pull it from the Corby centres – these centres are key hubs for communication and do so much good work on the ground, and they need to be given more priority.
- We are also in conversation about what can be done to prepare for future bids, such as electric bus funding, as well as scrutinising areas we could save money while also saving carbon emissions, such as with Home to School Transport (this year spend increased by £7 million).
*Read last year’s budget amendments in more detail here:
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Or want to highlight some areas you want us to prioritise for next year’s budget? Get in touch via our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KetteringGreenParty