Increased level of grant

Councillors in south Warwickshire are pleased with the government grant for next year. Stratford-on-Avon District Council will receive £6.516m in the provisional settlement for next year's local authority spending settlement.

The Government Grant for 2005/06 was £5.778m and for 2006/07 the provisional settlement is £6.516m. This increase is £738k more than the Council received last year and represents a 12.8% increase in cash terms to the previous year. Included within this amount is about £440k to assist with the implementation of free-fare concessionary travel from April 2006.

"This is a good news story, it will help us in our medium term planning to have an indication of our government support for more than one year in advance, however, we still have tough decisions to make in delivering the budget for next year," said Cllr Les Topham, the council leader.

"We will be consulting our residents over the next couple of months to seek their views on the level of council tax and how it affects the services we provide. We have a public meeting planned on Monday 9 January at Elizabeth House."