Swindon Council Still Has £4.2m of Unallocated New Homes Bonus

Given the many challenges Swindon faces presently and the Tory Cabinet’s refusal to meet those challenges because they say there is not enough, it is rather shocking that they are sitting on £4.2m of New Homes Bonus money.

Following a question from the Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, to the Cabinet at the last Cabinet Meeting, it has discovered that Swindon Council still has £4.2m of unspent and unallocated New Homes Bonus money from previous years.

The Labour Group Leader has said that given the town’s many pressing challenges it faces which the Conservative Group have said there is no money to tackle, he is shocked that there is still so much New Homes Bonus money left unspent.

The Labour Group Leader is advocating spending some of this money on funding the £600K necessary for the detailed plans of the Thamesdown Drive Extension Road, to provide increased investment of road resurfacing in the town to tackle potholes and more investment on introducing grass cretes to end the current spate of messy grass verges across the town. He said the Labour Group will be proposing this at the February Budget Meeting at the Council’s Civic Offices.

The Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, said:   “Given the many challenges Swindon faces presently and the Tory Cabinet’s refusal to meet those challenges because they say there is not enough, it is rather shocking that they are sitting on £4.2m of New Homes Bonus money.

I would like to see some of this money spent on areas that most need it. For example, it is clear that a detailed plan is needed of the Thamesdown Drive Extension Road before the government will consider giving us the money to build it, so £600K could be spent on this. There’s also a big problem in Swindon with the state of many roads which are in need of resurfacing and also the state of many of Swindon’s grass verges, so we believe new investment in these areas are also vital.

So what the Labour Group will be proposing at the Council budget meeting is for some of the £4.2m to be used to pay for the detailed plans for the road and new investment in road resurfacing to reduce potholes and to address the messy grass verges in our town.

We think these issues are a high priority for residents and therefore the Council should be addressing these priorities with this unspent and unallocated money.”