Committee to discuss proposal for freezing district rates

Committee to discuss proposal for freezing district rates

4 December 2024

ONE of Newry, Mourne and Down Council’s most powerful committees is to discuss a proposal aimed at freezing the district rate for the next five years via prudent financial management.

At Monday night’s final meeting of the full council for this year, a motion was tabled urging the local authority to aim to sustainably live within its means and delivering affordable frontline services at the best cost for the ratepayer.

Tabled by Downpatrick councillor, Cadogan Enright, the proposal has been referred to the Strategic Finance Working Group for detailed discussion.

Cllr Enright wants the local authority to ensure all discretionary non-frontline projects have a “clear and dependable pay-back” between three and eight years that will increase revenues or reduce expenses, ensuring the rates rise can be be held at zero for a five-year period.

He said delivering frontline services affordably is not just “meaningless mouthing of platitudes” insisting this principle presents councillors with real choices in fulfilling their fiduciary duties. 

Cllr Enright labelled the plan to build a new £20m council headquarters in Newry as a “gross waste of money” and argued better buildings are available for a tiny fraction of that cost.

He said Alliance has shown that the current plans for the new headquarters requires the local authority to spend £1.5m a year more for the next three decades.

And Cllr Enright claimed a “£45m overpayment” can be avoided by moving the council’s Newry-based staff into good accommodation on the Quays in the city, in a location convenient to the public and with good parking. 

“We have no need to build a giant second HQ in Newry,” he declared.

“A policy of ensuring all discretionary non-frontline projects have a clear and dependable pay-back that produces value for money for the ratepayer has real-world meaning.”

Cllr Enright also claimed that based on figures Alliance has received from the local authority’s consultants about the gondola ride into the Mournes, “there is no financial business case for the project”.

He continued: “It looks like it will lose us millions of pounds every year but, by contrast, there are several so-called ‘green economy’ projects that are not being fast-tracked which would give the Council a huge positive cash flow from their very first year and are more closely associated with the organisation’s core statutory duties, unlike the gondola.”

Cllr Enright said people in Newcastle also want a new leisure centre.

“Councillors have been talking about for this project for the past 30 years which should cost about £12m, not the £50m estimated by the Department for the Economy for the gondola,” he suggested.

“The SDLP and Sinn Fein have already taken £15m out of our current spending budget for these vanity projects that otherwise would have paid for frontline services with no rates increase.”

Cllr Enright argues that the Newry headquarters and gondola projects will result in more than a 5.5% increase on the rates if they go ahead. 

He added: “Council staff in Newry are deserving of an affordable modern office building with good parking for both themselves and the public and should not have to wait years for a building project that may take until 2027 to complete.”