LIB DEM SMASH AND GRAB ON GOOD CAUSES

Lib Dem Somerset County Council are helping themselves to money set-aside for good causes just to balance their books.

Lib Dems at Somerset County Council have been accused of jeopardising the future of community groups in Mendip and Sedgemoor by slashing the grants available to them.

The Somerset Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund is a pot of money that is distributed to a variety of community groups for good causes in areas with aggregate quarries, and has distributed over £2million since 2002.

However, the Lib Dems in Taunton have now decided to cut this Fund and keep £200,000 for themselves.

Dawn Hill, Conservative Councillor for Cheddar and member of the SALSF Steering Group, commented on the Lib Dem decision. She said "Having sat on the Steering Group of the Fund for the last 4 years, I have seen at first-hand how much good this scheme does for the people of Mendip and Sedgemoor. However, yet again, the Lib Dems have shown just how much disregard they have for residents of Somerset, and as a result have decided to slash this fund by two-thirds. Applications to the Fund are already over-subscribed, and now there's even less money to go around. A lot of community groups are going to be very disappointed by this heartless Lib Dem decision.''

Ken Maddock, Somerset County Council's Conservative Group Leader, added, "This Fund used to be restricted, so that only worthy community schemes could benefit, but this restriction has now been lifted. As soon as this happened, the Lib Dems heartlessly used this money to fill their financial black-hole, ignoring the needs of the people of Mendip and Sedgemoor. I don't know how the Lib Dems can look them in the eye after this.''

END

For more information: contact

Councillor Dawn Hill, County Councillor for Cheddar and member of the SALSF Steering Group, 01934 743138 dmhill@somerset.gov.uk

Councillor Ken Maddock, County Councillor for Mendip South and Leader of Somerset County Council's Conservative Group, 01823 356784 / 01458 850906 kmaddock@somerset.gov.uk

NOTES TO EDITOR:

In 2002 the Government introduced a tax of £1.60 on every tonne of primary aggregate sold in the UK. Somerset is a large producer of this type of aggregate, with over 9 million tonnes sold in 2007. Other counties also have major aggregate industries including Leicestershire, Derbyshire, North Yorkshire and Staffordshire, so this tax raises a considerable sum across the country; some of this revenue is diverted to the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, administered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and used to reduce the environmental footprint of aggregates production and deliver benefits in areas of aggregates extraction. For the period 2008 to 2011, five themes have been proposed to receive funding of £21M per year, subject to consultation with the organisations who deliver the fund. These themes are:

  • Quarries (reduce carbon emissions from quarry operation; enhance landscapes and wildlife habitats etc.)

  • Marine (promote more environmentally friendly extraction of dredged aggregates, map resources, research impact on biology etc.)

  • Resource use (minimise demand for primary aggregates, promote use of recycled aggregates etc.)

  • Transport (encourage use of rail or water instead of road transport, provide advice and training to reduce transport fuel consumption)

  • Communities (to compensate local communities for the impact of aggregates extraction)

It is this last theme that Somerset County Council (SCC) is involved with, and the fund for Communities in Somerset is known as the Somerset Aggregates Levy Fund (SALSF). So far the SALSF has distributed over £2M of grants. However, the way in which this money is made available to Somerset County Council has changed. In the past, this money has come direct from Defra to the various County Councils involved in this scheme; from 2008 onwards, it will be part of the Area Based Grant, which is a pot of money supplied by central government to County Councils to be spent on the various services provided. Each Local Area Agreement (LAA) has agreed priority areas where the money is to be spent (which will be different for each County Council to reflect the needs and aspirations of the community), and national indicators to measure how well this is achieved. Projects that apply for SALSF funding will now have to meet criteria reflecting both Defra and Somerset County Council priorities.

The funding available to projects has been about £290,000 in recent years; the funding available for Year 8 2009/10 has been set at £108,000, less 7% administration fee, which means that communities will only receive a total of £101,000.

The Somerset Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund has been established using money allocated to Somerset County Council by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Ref: 12Mar09a