Row breaks out over plan to double price of Morecambe splash park tickets for kids

A row broke out at a council budget meeting over plans to double the price for children to use a splash park in Morecambe.

The cost of a kids' splash park ticket will rise from £2 to £4 as part of a wide-ranging increase in fees and charges at council facilities, agreed in the new Lancaster City Council budget. Adult tickets will remain at £1.

The 2024/25 budget was officially set on Wednesday night at a meeting of councillors at Morecambe Town Hall.

The council said the rise will "bring pricing broadly in line with the cost of a swimming session at Salt Ayre Leisure Centre" when the splash park reopens for the summer.

But Councillor Andrew Gardiner, leader of the Conservatives, slammed the price rise.

"You're going to do away with the word 'happy' from Happy Mount Park," said Councillor Gardiner.

"A 100% increase for a bit of fun. Little kids in the summer and we take their fun away. It's disgraceful."

In reply, Councillor Phillip Black, Labour leader of the city council, said: "As far as I'm concerned we are a victim of the gross incompetence of a decade or more of Tory governance and it has left us having to pick up the pieces for somebody else's mess.

"You want to talk about, isn't it a shame that fees and charges are going up in this service or that. We know exactly what the root cause of that is, and it is nothing to do with this council."

The Budget

On Wednesday, Lancaster City Council's 2024/25 general fund revenue budget was set at £25.008m.

The revenue budget mainly covers the council's day-to-day running costs including energy, paying for suppliers and services, and overheads at its premises which include the town halls, the Platform in Morecambe, and Salt Ayre Sports Centre and the Storey Centre in Lancaster, 

Councillor Tim Hamilton-Cox, cabinet member for finance, from the Greens, said balancing the budget had been achieved partly due to "operational savings" and "a prudent increase in fees and charges".

This rise will also affect parking in council-run car parks, with ticket prices set to go up by around 10 per cent.

The council's garden waste collection service will also go up from £41 to £45 annually.

There will also be a price review at the council-run Salt Ayre Sports Centre in Lancaster.

But no major public-facing services have been cut in the budget, unlike in 2023/4 when the Lancaster and Morecambe Visitor Information Centres were closed.

Councillor Caroline Jackson, deputy council leader and from the Greens (pictured below), said: "Fees and charges are one of our major elements of income. Inflation has removed a large amount of that income.

"Charges go up, we still use that money within the district. It is not a case of take it away and the community never sees it again.

"Those charges are then used in all sorts of ways to back up what we do within our district. We are still supporting the arts and festivals."

On Wednesday the council also set its capital expenditure budget, which covers spending on various projects.

In 2024/25, the gross capital budget is set at just over £17m, offset by around £10.3m in external funding.

Money will be spent in various ways, including on an ongoing project for council vehicles to become powered by electricity, decarbonisation at council properties, a solar farm scheme at Burrow Beck in Lancaster, a flood defence scheme on Caton Road, expanding the Lancaster City Museum shop to provide some of the services previously handled by the Visitor Information Centres, and the council's ongoing plans to regenerate the Canal Quarter area of Lancaster, starting with new housing.

The council also has a legal requirement to keep a separate ring-fenced account to provide and maintain its stock of around 3500 council houses. As of March 31, this account balance is forecast to be £750,000.

The city council's share of Council tax, its main source of funding, will rise by the maximum allowable of 2.99 per cent, raising around £10.928m for the council.

While the city council sets and controls around 11 per cent of the total Council Tax bill paid by residents. The remainder is controlled by Lancashire County Council (73 per cent), Lancashire Police Authority (12 per cent) and Lancashire Combined Fire Authority (4 per cent), which have increased their precepts as follows:

Lancashire County Council: 4.99 per cent

Lancashire Police Authority: 4.75 per cent

Lancashire Combined Fire Authority: 2.99 per cent

In addition, residents living in areas with a parish council pay an additional precept to their parish council.

​The council has already agreed to continue 100 per cent council tax support for those on the lowest incomes and most affected by the cost of living crisis, one of the few local authorities in England to do so.

No money has been used from reserves this year to balance the budget and in fact more than £1.9m has been transferred into reserves, leaving a total of just over £20m. 

'Core Spending Power' for 2024/25 will increase from £18.93m to £20.09m following the recent Local Government funding settlement between the council and the Conservative government. 

Core Spending Power is a measure used by the government to set out the resources available to a council to fund service delivery. The calculation combines certain grants, and estimates of business rates and Council tax.

The council has spent £1.4m from reserves in helping to clean up the A1 Supa Skips site on the Lune Industrial Estate in Lancaster following the major commercial waste fire in December.

The council continues to look for ways to be reimbursed for this from other sources, including the government.

Councillor Phillip Black (pictured below) said delivering a balanced budget this year was "no small feat".

But Councillor Black also had words of warning for the future.

"We are facing a long-term local government funding crisis. We know the stories of other administrations up and down the country which are struggling with their finances so badly that they are having to put in notices that are tantamount to bankruptcies. We are nowhere near that position.

"(But) we've got a housing crisis, an energy crisis, a cost of living crisis, a homelessness crisis, an environmental crisis, we're still dealing with the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. These things are all rushing on top of us at the same time."

A council report says: "Current spending plans are sustainable in the short term through the prudent allocation of funding from reserves. However, the current Medium Term Financial Strategy suggests a structural budget gap in 2025/26 onwards of approximately £1.435m raising to £4.567m. This is size of deficit is not sustainable and if not addressed by significant interventions and balances used, they will be quickly depleted."

There are also concerns about government plans to stop a Household Support Fund which helps vulnerable people in the district. 

And while there has been an improvement in business rates available to the council in this budget, concerns remain should Heysham 1 power station be decommissioned in 2026 - as the two power stations make up 30 per cent of the council's total rateable value on business rates.

All councillors present at the meeting voted in favour of the budget, except for the five Conservatives who voted against.

Tory leader Councillor Gardiner (pictured below) slated the council's housing strategy, saying: "I look at a district that needs to wake up and smell the coffee. We have a fantastic district here. But we have to have plans that fit in with the next three or four years and provide housing. We can't keep paying hotel bills that are ridiculous. We will be voting against this budget."

But Councillor Black replied: "I see a government that has stripped 60p in the £1 out of our funding and created a situation where we have this homelessness crisis. We're having to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds accommodating people in bed and breakfasts because of the economic conditions (the government) has created."

Voting in favour of the budget were:

Councillors Abuhajar, Ainscough, Armistead, Bannon, Belcher, M Black, P Black, Blaikie, Brookes, Cleet, Colbridge, Cooper, Cozler, Dennison, Dowding, Fish, Gawith, Hall, Hamilton-Cox, Hanna, Hanson, Harris, Hart, Hartley, Hunter, C Jackson, P Jackson, Lenox, Livermore, Sally Maddocks, Sophie Maddocks, McGowan, A Mills, H Mills, Parr, Pattison, Penney, Potter, Pritchard, Riches, Russell, Sommerville, Stubbins, Thornberry, Tyldesley, Whitaker, Wilkinson, Wood

Voting against were:

Councillors Budden, Gardiner, Knight, Newton and Wild

Lancaster City Council, which provides hundreds of services including waste collection, street cleaning, maintaining parks and playgrounds, providing CCTV and supporting arts, culture and entertainment, sets a budget every year in February.

In 2023/24, the council spent around £25m on staff costs, around £2m on supplies and services, around £7m on its premises and around £4m on debt repayment. It pulled in £20m through fees and charges (including from its car parks in the Lancaster district) £11m from Council Tax and business rates, and £4.5m from other incomes.

The council is run by a coalition cabinet of Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat councillors, with Labour having the largest group.

READ MORE: Car parking charges and garden waste fees to rise in Lancaster City Council budget proposals - Beyond Radio

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