Archive for category: Latest News

MEDIA RELEASE
16 January 2025

River levels hit their highest point since records began during last week’s devastating floods, as the number of flood-hit homes nears 900.

Agencies across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland continue to support residents and businesses affected by last week’s unprecedented floods after a month’s worth of rain fell in a couple of days.

David Turnbull, the Environment Agency’s flood risk manager, said: “This has been a major event. Heavy rainfall and snow melt has meant that flows in our rivers and tributaries were similar to Storm Henk and several exceeded their highest recorded levels.

“In some areas, the rainfall over 24 hours was more than double that seen during last year’s Storm Henk.

“Flooding can be devastating for people. We’ll continue to work with our partners to help communities be more resilient to flood risk. Initial estimates show that our defences prevented flooding to over 2,000 properties.”

Zafar Saleem, Leicestershire County Council assistant chief executive and chair of the partnership recovery group, said: “It’s too early to say what the exact reasons were. But we do know that we’ve seen levels of rainfall, snow melt and river flows like never before. This simply overwhelmed drainage, watercourses, and defences.

“For some people it’s the second time their homes and businesses have flooded within a year. People are understandably angry and worried about the future. As a partnership, we’re continuing to support local residents, but more needs to be done to tackle this national issue.

“This rainfall caused major flooding from the river network impacting so many communities across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

“Sadly, it’s not possible to fully defend all households against events like this which are happening more frequently across the country. We must continue to work together to help reduce the impact of flooding. This includes people being aware and prepared for floods.”

Last week, councils across Leicestershire and Rutland wrote to ministers asking for financial support and a shakeup of the national approach to flooding.

This week, council officers are visiting homes to provide support and advice. Councils and other agencies continue the clean-up operation, sweeping roads and collecting flood damaged property.

Residents affected by the floods are reminded of the support and advice available:

• From the National Flood Forum
• Sign up for flood warnings
• Check for flooding in your area
• Follow the Environment Agency on social media
• District and borough councils
• Leicestershire County Council’s website, Leicester City Council’s website and Rutland County Council’s website

During the flooding:

• 883 properties were flooded
• Rest centres were open in Leicester, Charnwood and Blaby
• More than 380 calls to the fire service
• 60 people were rescued from properties and 27 from cars by boat
• Leicestershire Police handled over 2,100 calls on 6 January – a 40-to-50 per cent rise on average daily demand
• East Midlands Ambulance Service declared a critical incident because of the demand in the region
• The Environment Agency issued a highly unusual severe flood warning, indicating ‘risk to life’
• Over 160 roads flooded
• 118 flood wardens available to help

Residents are urged to report flooding on the county council’s website or the city council’s website

11 December 2024

PR 11576

Government urged to ‘tackle big issues’ for local government funding

A firm grip on finances in the face of spiralling costs, is why Leicestershire County Council hasn’t hit crisis point, says the authority as it publishes a new budget plan.

The four-year proposals reveal rapidly rising demand for services, and inflation, are increasing costs by £217m, compared to expected extra income and savings of £122m.

A combination of innovative initiatives and a reduced back office – which are both driving down costs by £33m – plus a Council Tax rise, means the books will balance next year but relentless pressure on services could create a £95m budget gap by 2029.

The plan includes earmarking just under £100m more to support vulnerable children and adults. An extra £12m of capital is also proposed to help fix potholes and repair roads, taking the total spend on roads, major schemes and tackling flooding to £125m over four years.

A proposed 4.99 per cent Council Tax increase from April (including 2 per cent for adult social care) will increase bills by £1.54 a week for a band D house. Generating £20m, it only covers the National Living Wage and National Insurance rises.

Acting council leader, Councillor Deborah Taylor, said: “Our financial position remains extremely challenging, although the strong grip we’ve maintained over our finances has ensured we are not at crisis point.

“I’m proud that pioneering work to drive down costs is paying off but the stark reality is that surging demand is not receding.

“This squeezes what we can spend elsewhere but we’re still fixing 7,300 potholes a year, supporting over 1,000 households to stay warm, gritting 1,300 miles of road each night during winter, and much more.

“That’s why it’s vital an overhaul of local government funding tackles the big issues. A focus purely on deprivation will disadvantage rural counties.”

Key budget pressures include:

• Children’s social care – a 60 per cent rise in demand and a 33 per cent increase in prices for placements have pushed up costs by £15m over the last two years
• Special educational needs and disability support – with 90 per cent more children having education, health and care plans compared to five years ago
• Construction price rises – costs for infrastructure schemes have been driven up significantly with inflation

Councillor Lee Breckon, cabinet member for resources, said: “Despite being the lowest funded county, we’re high performing. And have saved £276m since 2010, showing how efficient and lean we are.

“We heavily rely on Council Tax to fund vital services. I know wallets are stretched but without an increase, we couldn’t deliver the level of service we know our residents need.

“Twenty-million-pounds sounds a lot but is wiped out by the National Living Wage and National Insurance rises. The ‘new’ money the Government announced for councils doesn’t shift the dial – and won’t cover all the extra costs from the autumn budget.

“The funding system must change to benefit low funded councils. If we were funded at same level as neighbours Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, we’d have around £100m more each year, and this can’t be right.”

Pioneering projects helping the council to make ends meet include:

• Streetlight switch – upgrading 68,000 streetlights from sodium lamps to LEDs is cutting carbon emissions by a massive 85 per cent compared to 2008 and driving down costs by over £2m a year. The project has just scooped prestigious Highway Electrical Association award for Sustainable Project of the Year.
• Helping people live at home – rolling out ‘care tech’ – over 2,600 pieces of equipment, including falls detectors and GPS location trackers – is helping over 1,000 people to live independently at home for longer and reducing adult social care costs by £1.25m.
• Barnardo’s – teaming up with Barnardo’s to run eight children’s homes locally is on track to generate savings of £2.25m over four years.

Tune in online next Tuesday (17 December) to hear the council’s cabinet discuss the proposals: www.leicestershire.gov.uk/webcast

A consultation on the plan is set to launch on 18 December.

Notes

The council’s yearly budget totals £616m – the authority is one of the biggest organisations in Leicestershire, spending around £10m every week on crucial services for Leicestershire residents.

District councils, police, fire and parish and town councils all make up portions of residents’ total Council Tax bills.

The proposals at a glance:

• The books balance by using reserves to manage a small gap – with a budget gap of £42m in 2027, rising to £95m by 2029
• Just under £100m more to support vulnerable people – in response to huge increase in demand
• An extra £12m of capital to help fix potholes and repair roads – taking the total spend on roads, major schemes and tackling flooding to £125m
• A Council Tax rise of 4.99% from April – generating an extra £20m which covers only the National Living Wage and National Insurance increases
• £33m of savings – including redesigning services, reducing the cost of back-office support services by maximising digital technology and smarter procurement, plus £52m to bring spend on SEND more in line with Government funding
• A £380m four-year capital pot – to fund one-costs of building roads, social care accommodation, new school places needed to support new housing, and more.

If you have experienced internal flooding to your home or business during Storm Babet (October 2023) or Storm Henk (January 2024), you may be eligible for a grant of up to £5,000 (inclusive of VAT) through the Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Repair Grant Scheme.

To see if you are eligible have a look at the information on our website.https://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/environment-and-planning/flooding-and-drainage/property-flood-resilience-repair-grant

Visitor spend across Blaby District has smashed the target set by the Council in its bid to make the area one of Leicestershire’s leading, most welcoming and sustainable tourism destinations.

In Blaby District Council’s current Tourism Growth Plan one aim was to increase the value of tourism by £50 million on 2016’s baseline level of £159 million.Latest figures for 2023 show this target has easily been surpassed with visitor spend at an impressive £217 million.

The growth in tourism spend is proving to be a springboard for wider economic prosperity across the District. Spend on accommodation, recreation and food and drink have seen the biggest rises. There has also been a significant increase in employment numbers despite difficulties faced by the sector.

The other two main aims in the Tourism Growth Plan are to, by 2025, increase the number of visitors by 1.3 million – to 4.6 million and increase the number of tourism jobs by 40% to 2,770. As of the end of 2023 visitor figures were at 3.04 million and there were 2,508 jobs.

As the existing Growth Plan ends the Council has started planning for 2025-2030. This includes a review of progress to date and consultation within the Council, the Tourism Partnership and key stakeholders, ready to launch in the new plan next year.

Councillor Cheryl Cashmore, Blaby District Council Portfolio Holder for Health, Leisure, Climate and Economic Development, said: “We are delighted with the progress being made, especially since the latest data shows a strong recovery post-Covid in all areas. In particular it’s fantastic to see the growth in the value of tourism, surpassing our ambitious target already.

“Our Tourism Growth Plan plays a vital role in moving forward the over-riding Blaby District Plan 2024-2028. It helps achieve our vision for Blaby District to be a great place to visit. It is also key to our priorities for ‘growing and supporting our economy’ and ‘keeping you safe and healthy’, by increasing visitor numbers, spend and employment in the District.

“It will also play a pivotal role in the Active Travel Strategy, Community, Health and Well-being Plan and the Economic Development Framework, making Blaby District a welcoming and sustainable tourism destination for residents and visitors.”

19 September 2024

Best regards

Karen Almond
Communications and Consultation Officer
Communications
Blaby District Council

Mobile: 07787 947674
Telephone: 0116 272 7577

www.blaby.gov.uk

Read the August issue of Leicestershire Matters – the email newsletter from Leicestershire County Council.