PRESS RELEASE Notts Save Our Services 1st March 2012
Campaigners to protest at city council budget meeting
On Monday March 5th, Nottinghamshire Save Our Services (Notts SOS)
will protest outside the Council House when Nottingham City Council
meets to vote on its budget for 2012-13.
From 12.30pm-1.30pm, campaigners from the group will join with members
of Nottingham City Unison, demonstrating against the cuts to jobs and
services being voted through.
There will also be a protest for people coming from work at 5pm-7pm.
Protesters hope to present a petition against the council’s cuts
during the lunchtime demonstration.
The budget being discussed at the meeting includes a 3.49% council tax
increase alongside 195 job cuts.
The council are looking at selling-off Portland Leisure Centre;
closing two centres for older people, Marlstones Elderly Person’s Home
in Bulwell and the Willows Centre in Beechdale; closing the Museum of
Nottingham Life at Brewhouse Yard; cutting food waste collections and
closing nine recycling centres; and reducing funding to Connexions, a
support service for young people.
The council had also propsed reducing redundancy payments for laid-off
staff to the legal minimum, but has subsequently withdrawn this
proposal.
In total the council hope to save £20m to cover a shortfall arising
from reduced government funding as a result of the coalition
government’s austerity drive.
The council has also said that this will not be the end to the cuts,
with an additional £24m of cutbacks required by the end of the spring
2015.
Notts SOS believe that the cuts agenda is ideologically driven and are
urging councillors to stand-up to central government.
Claire Taylor from Notts SOS said, “Council Leader Jon Collins and
Deputy Leader Graham Chapman have been vocally critical of central
government and often with good reason. Now it’s time for them to put
their money where their mouth is and refuse to pass the cuts onto the
people of Nottingham. Even a single council refusing to implement a
cuts budget would shake the coalition government.”
Contacts
Email: nottssos@gmail.com
Website: https://nottssos.org.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nottssos
OStatus: https://indy.im/nottssos
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/nottssosfb
Email list: http://goo.gl/uT89q
Notes for editors
1. Notts SOS was set up in the autumn of 2010 to campaign and oppose
all cuts to services in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. We have been
fighting council cuts on many levels since then, including organising
a 1,200 strong march to the city centre in November 2010.
ENDS