Birmingham Green Party proposed its alternative budget and medium-term financial plan, at the Council budget meeting on Tuesday 28th February. It showed how Birmingham City Council can be braver and bolder in protecting services, responding to the climate emergency, addressing residents’ local concerns and supporting residents through the cost-of-living crisis.
The Green Party Group proposals included:
- Stopping the cuts in funding to the Careers, Youth and Library Services
Increased funding of the Council’s Climate Change team – an extra £6 million over 4 years - Investing in solar panels and energy efficiency measures on Council buildings to save energy and the Council money
- More money for road safety, using income from the Clean Air Zone
Investing an extra £2 million a year in our parks and giving councillors and their communities the power to decide how this is spent. - More money to help residents through the cost of living crisis an extra £6 million over the next two years
- Funding to restore bulky waste collections to help tackle flytipping – prioritised to those on the lowest incomes.
- Investment in a food waste collection pilot, which will also look at how to combine this with restoring free garden waste collections
- Increased highways enforcement officers to help tackle problem parking across the city
- The Green Party Group would have funded this by putting less into reserves, and used the clean air zone surplus to increase the road safety budget and for some of the increases to the climate team. The Green Party budget would have still increased reserves over four years.
You can see the full amendment here.
Unfortunately the ruling Labour chose to vote down these proposals Green Party’s budget amendment.
Councillor Julien Pritchard Leader of the Green Group said:
“The people of Birmingham needed a much braver and bolder budget to protect and invest in vital services and tackle the climate emergency.
Labour-run Birmingham City Council’s budget just wasn’t playing straight with people in this city. It’s all smoke and mirrors with potential hidden cuts. But what we can see is Brummies are getting less while yet again paying more.
It’s outrageous that Labour’s financial plan proposed this slashing of funding for careers, youth services, and libraries from next year. These services are vital to local communities. Cutting funding for them stores up problems and costs for future years.
The Council’s climate emergency response has been sluggish, but Labour’s proposals don’t put any extra funding into tackling climate change beyond what they’ve already agreed.
The Green Party proposed a bolder and braver budget to help tackle some of this.
We couldn’t fix everything that’s wrong with Labour’s budget, but we proposed some improvements that would have protected vital services, increase resources to tackle the climate emergency, and deliver on residents’ local priorities.
The Green Party’s alternative budget was bolder and braver and could have given residents hope that things can get better.
The Green Party will keep fighting proposals to cut youth library and career services in communities and across the city.”