Heswall councillor warns that Wirral faces embarrassment if it doesn't deliver regeneration promises

A Heswall councillor has warned colleagues that Wirral Council could face government intervention if it does not get its regeneration programme right.

Wirral Council needs to save £20m this year to address its budget black hole, with two damning government reports published last November saying the authority must spend less on leisure services.

Initially, the figure was £27 million, but improvements in government funding reduced the number by £7 million.

The cuts plan, which could change following a public consultation and further council meetings, would see 11 libraries, Woodchurch Leisure Centre and two public golf courses closed down.

As well as the current budget situation, the authority is involved in plans to regenerate Birkenhead town centre with new office space and a new market among other things, and is supporting Wirral Waters, a project set to deliver up to 13,000 homes over the next 25 years which is led by Peel L&P.

The plans are directed at bringing life back to parts of the borough many feel have been left behind, such as the Birkenhead docklands, but the council's investment in these schemes comes with a financial risk.

At last night's meeting of Wirral Council's audit and risk committee, Heswall Conservative councillor Kathy Hodson said all members have to give officers the backing to produce the savings required.

Responding to a presentation by Mark Stocks, from Grant Thornton, Cllr Hodson added that the council has to make sure it gets its regeneration plans right.

She added that if the authority does not, commissioners will come in and tell us what to do and we will have been "embarrassed".

Cllr Hodson said this was something she did not want to happen, but the authority was in the "last chance saloon" to avoid it.

Mr Stocks noted the council was in the "highly unusual" position of getting a capitalisation directive, a government loan, for two years in a row.

He added that the council had drawn down its reserves to a level he would not advise and that the authority had struggled to deliver all of its planned savings in previous years.

Mr Stocks acknowledged that Wirral Council had entered into a lot of guarantees in projects such as Legacy, at Wirral Waters, and two new office blocks in Birkenhead.

He said the council now had to make these projects a success and avoid the liabilities it was subject to.

On the budget more broadly, Mr Stocks said that there was now a really clear financial strategy in place and that if the savings plans are delivered the authority will be in a much better position than it is now.

Shaer Halewood, the council's director of resources, said she shared Grant Thornton's concerns and was on the same page as the organisation.

Ms Halewood wanted to provide reassurance to the committee, saying that the authority had been looking at the Legacy project for four years and had taken a long time to get it right for the council and had called upon a lot of external expertise.

Labour councillor Stuart Whittingham said that Wirral Council had £260m in direct grant funding from the government in 2010, and this was reduced to just £37m by 2020.

He called for the government to give fair funding to Wirral and said that the risks of the major regeneration projects in the borough were understood with a lot of work having been done within the council.

Cllr Whittingham said if the council had not taken the approach it has done there would probably be another 20 or 30 years of the land in central Birkenhead being underdeveloped and becoming a wasteland.

The Labour councillor thought that would also create a pressure, which he thought should be taken into account.