East Sussex Fire Authority has voted to increase its council tax precept by the maximum allowed by government: £5 for a band D property.
Yet again central government has put the fire authority between a rock and a hard place: cuts or a council tax increase.
As the only councillor who is also a public sector worker for an emergency service on the fire authority, I voted for it with a heavy heart. But we have a duty to balance the books.
Despite the hike, the authority will be digging into reserves and making changes to operations to achieve a balanced budget.
Greens know that council tax is an unjust tax but we can’t cut services, especially when we know that demands on the fire and rescue service are growing with climate change.
The new Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, Chris Philp, has recently written to the fire authority saying that he will be looking for “efficiencies” in the coming years.
Our firefighters are yet again being asked to do more for less.
As the climate crisis bites, the fire and rescue service is responding to more emergencies caused by weather extremes like flash flooding or the impact of heatwaves in our urban centres and our countryside.
But this seems to pass central government by.
Local fire authorities can’t keep plugging the gaps left by a government that seems determined to run down our essential public services.
There’s a lot of love for our fire service in Brighton and Hove and East Sussex. But not a lot of love from central government.
I know well that frontline staff have been taking effective year-on-year pay cuts. The Fire Brigades Union estimated that the average firefighter’s real-terms wages are worth £4,000 less now than in 2010.
Greens have consistently stood up for staff and our communities throughout 12 years of government cuts imposed on the fire service and we continue to do so.
Councillor Steph Powell is a Green member of East Sussex Fire Authority and Brighton and Hove City Council.
It is your Gr££n administration at fault for much of our city’s ill. Delusional instance from the Gr££ns.
Quite simply the Greens have let the residents and businesses in Brighton down, by not listening to them and treating them with contempt.
Karma will be arriving in early May
Blah blah blah.
It’s someone else’s fault – not the Greens!
Somebody change the record – it’s beginning to grate
I take it from the replies above that the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service only operates in Brighton and Hove and not in the East Sussex County Council area. By the way, which political Party controls the ESCC?