'Significant' changes made to the RBWM 2023/24 budget

The council has made some ‘significant changes’ to its proposals to the 2023/24 budget laying out what the council intends to spend or trim back.

In one of its major changes, it is looking to retain the Family Hubs and youth offending team, and reverse a plan to begin charging for delivery of Meals on Wheels.

The Royal Borough set out its draft budget at the beginning of December and these particular points were controversial.

But at the beginning of this month, leader of the council Andrew Johnson announced the Borough’s intention to reverse some actions laid out in the draft budget.

This includes proposals to strip about £400,000 from Family Hub services – a move opposition councillors called ‘scary’, as they believed this would effectively remove the service.

The decision to make such changes comes as a result of receiving about £3.5million in Government funding.

An additional £500,000 for adult social care and £670,000 for children’s services means the borough can retain the services, said Cllr Johnson.

Plans to introduce Sunday parking charges in Maidenhead have also been scrapped in the final budget papers.

The residents’ parking discount scheme is being expanded to cover one-hour free parking in Victoria Street car park in Windsor and Hines Meadow in Maidenhead.

Another addition is £240,000 to fund four additional police officers to support neighbourhood policing, ‘dedicated to RBWM’ in partnership with Thames Valley Police.

These are set to help with issues including the night time economy, illegal street activity, fly-tipping and other anti-social behaviour.

However, this move has proved controversial with some opposition members due to concerns over how it will work.

There is also planned investment in four environmental enforcement officers.

The current street cleaning contract includes removing fly tipping – but this has proven to be ‘insufficient’ as a result of a large increase ‘for a number of years’.

Additional money has also been earmarked for air quality monitoring. Two air quality monitoring units are planned, plus equipment to identify where best to place these.

The budget is set to be discussed by cabinet this evening (Thursday.) It will be formally voted on at full council on February 21.