A £7.5 MILLION refurbishment of Bradford City Hall and a new £5m solar farm are among schemes that are being scrapped as Bradford Council attempts to balance its books.
Reduced funding for a planned leisure centre and a decision to no longer move ahead with a £20m “strategic acquisition” are other money saving measures included in the Council’s latest swathe of cuts.
A black hole in the Councils budget led to the authority applying for “exceptional financial support” – which allows the Council to borrow cash in a bid to stay afloat – from Government last year.
The successful bid for support also allows the Council to use money from the sale of assets to balance its books.
But the support requires the Council to make a wave of cuts, or find new income, worth around £40m a year for the next five years.
At a meeting of the Council’s Executive next Tuesday, members will be given an update on the latest money saving proposals.
These include removing a number of high-cost schemes from the Council’s capital programme – essentially taking over £40m worth of proposals out of the Authority’s plans for the coming years.
The report also reveals that a number of recent grants awarded to Bradford means Council spending and borrowing for certain schemes can be reduced by millions.
Schemes that will be removed from the Council’s funding plans include:
- A £7.5m project to make improvements to Grade I listed Bradford City Hall. For years there have been proposals to open more of the building up to the public. However, the latest report says the works are now “not a priority.”
- A £5m solar farm planned for the South of Bradford. The renewable energy scheme would have been funded with £3m of Council borrowing and £2m external funding. Earlier this year it was revealed the five-acre solar farm near Odsal could provide 20 per cent of the Council’s energy. The report suggests this plan be scrapped.
- £1m will be saved by scrapping plans for a “One Public Sector Estate” in the city – a public sector office hub once proposed for the Jacob’s Well site. The report says this scheme should be removed as “work is no longer progressing.”
- A “strategic acquisition” that could have cost up to £20m will not progress. The report does not say what this acquisition would be, but says the Council should “remove the reserve scheme in full as no scheme identified.“ The Telegraph & Argus has asked the Council for more details about this planned acquisition.
Other projects will now require less funding from the Council.
The planned Squire Lane Leisure Centre was awarded £20m in Government funding through the Levelling Up Fund several years ago. The Council was due to top this funding up with a further £14.9m. However, this will now be reduced to £7.9m of Council funding.
The City Village scheme to build hundreds of homes on the site of the Kirkgate Shopping Centre and Oastler Centre in Bradford has been awarded more Government funding than anticipated, meaning the Council can reduce the amount of money it is providing towards the scheme by £6.5m.
A Government grant to improve SEND facilities in Bradford will mean the Council no longer needs to borrow £6m to fund the works.
Money from developers will be used to provide £500,000 worth of improvements to “playable spaces” in the District – meaning the Council needs to borrow less to fund these works.
A raft of savings were discussed by the Executive earlier this month, and many are currently out to public consultation.
The savings that will be discussed at the next Executive meeting will take the total planned savings for the 2025/26 financial year to £43.5m.
Bradford Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “Like other councils, we are facing significant financial challenges.
“We have a five-year strategy to address our structural £120m budget shortfall and achieve financial sustainability. As part of this strategy, we need to find savings or income equivalent to around £40 million next year, and for the next five years.
“We are trying wherever possible to find new ways of working and new funding sources so that we can save money without cutting services, but we continue to have some tough decision to make.”
