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Bristol City Council faces £135m funding shortfall
A multi-million-pound hole in Bristol’s finances will hinder the city’s chances of an equitable economic recovery.
That is the warning from Marvin Rees, who has revealed the cost of the pandemic on already-stretched council coffers is estimated to be £9m for this financial year, more than £28m in 2021/22 and £135m over the next five to ten years.
The figures have been calculated on the basis of lost revenues, the direct cost of Covid responses and the increased cost of delivering services.
is needed now More than ever
Bristol’s mayor also said during a press briefing on Wednesday that the council is set to lose an additional £1.5m a month if the city is put into the harshest tier, three, after the end of the second national lockdown.
The council doesn’t know yet which tier the city will be placed in, which Rees said poses “a challenge” in terms of planning. The Government is due to announce tiers for each area of the country on Thursday.
“We have been asking government consistently for a framework for the exit strategy, both between the tiers and out of lockdown,” said Rees. “We have not had that.”
It comes as Bristol’s rate of confirmed Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people dropped to 390, as of Tuesday evening, down from a peak of 490 but still well above the England average of 230.
Rees said the right tier for Bristol will depend on the “balance of risks” between those posed by the virus and the consequences of restrictions. “The virus itself is a health challenge, but so is decimating the economy,” he said.
Speaking about the impact of the predicted budget shortfall on hopes for an equitable recovery, Rees said the numbers don’t stack up.
“There is no recovery without local government,” he said. “Because economic recovery is not something that happens in the abstract, we need good mental health, we need good education, we need good homes, we need all the services that local government provides and all the connectivity it provides to form the basis of recovery.”
He continued: “The underlying trend coming out of this economic depression is going to be a compounding of economic inequality. The people who are most marginal to the economy will be hit first and hardest.
“They will be least well placed to take advantage of economic uptake when it comes.”
Marvin Rees says the economic recovery needs to be ‘values led’ – photo by Martin Booth
Local government is essential to the economy, said Rees, in terms of providing training and support services to enable people to go to work and get a foot in the door.
“If our ability to do that is hampered then it will stitch a weakness into the economy,” the mayor told journalists, reiterating his fear that there will be a “values-free dash for growth” off the back of the depression when what is needed is “values-led growth” that focuses on decarbonising the economy and not compounding inequalities.
“It has to be done right,” said Rees. “We have a chance to rethink the very nature of our economic model now. Local government is key to that reinvention of the economy at a local level.”
Main photo by Martin Booth
Read more: Bristol mayor slams government changes to planning regulations
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