Local government leaders are claiming funding cuts for councils across the country are running much higher than the 9.9% average fall announced by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles yesterday.

Pickles said local authorities would undergo an average fall of 4.4% from all funding sources with no council seeing a decrease of more than 8.9% in 2011/12.

But the reduction in funding from central government to local authorities is higher at 9.9% next year as part of a four year plan to cut grants by 28%.

The Local Government Association believes some council’s will see a reduction in the money they receive from the Government of up to 17% in the first year.

The association also estimates total funding cuts of £6.5bn over the next 12 months which will all but decimate spending on building and highways maintenance.

Baroness Margaret Eaton, Chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “We have been clear that the level of spending reduction that council’s are going to have to make goes way beyond anything that conventional efficiency drives, such as shared services, can achieve.”

“We have to face the fact that this level of grant reduction will inevitably lead to cuts in services.”

“The Government has recognised the impact the cuts will have on those areas of the country that rely most heavily on the public sector and has provided a limited amount of new money to help those areas cope.”

“However, it still remains the case that the cuts are frontloaded rather than spread evenly across the four years. Councils now face incredibly tough choices about the services they continue to provide and those they will have to cut.”

“It comes at a time when councils are seeing cost pressures mounting on services such as adult social care, child protection, waste management and flood defence.”

“Councils knew the cuts were coming and did all they could to prepare. We already cut more than £1 billion from our budgets in the middle of this year. We will now pull out all the stops to minimise the impact of these cuts and build on our record of delivering new and better ways of doing things.”

This article has been sourced from construction enquirer.

A press release issued by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) discusses a new funding programme to help Welsh businesses lower the amount of waste sent to landfill. The first phase of funding is available to companies tackling commercial food waste, for example food factories and ready meal manufacturers, and waste from construction, demolition and excavation.

For Construction, Demolition & Excavation waste, funding is available to create new recycling or reprocessing facilities or expand and improve existing ones. It also covers collection and mobile processing equipment . Projects planning to install additional processing or separation equipment can also apply.

All facilities must be located in Wales and to be eligible to apply, projects must meet WRAP’s requirements. For this round of applications, a signed contract with WRAP must be in place by 31 August 2009 with the project up and running by 31 December 2010.

Those applying need to demonstrate that their planned project could not go ahead without the funding and that it is commercially viable in the medium to long term.

For more information, and to view the original article visit WRAP’s website or email capital.suport@wrap.org.uk