Labour plans to spend £1m reopening Bristol’s public toilets it shut in 2018

Next week, Bristol city councillors meet to agree the annual budget. The focus so far has been on the Green-led administration’s proposed £43million of cuts, savings and ways to bring in more money to balance the books for 2025/26, which have already seen several major U-turns where some original options from a long list have either been dropped or pushed back.

These include halving the libraries budget, ending lollipop school patrols, mothballing three museums, stopping funding for cultural groups and removing £3.4million from council tax benefits for the poorest households. Now it’s the turn of the other three parties in the chamber who have all submitted alternative suggestions, called amendments, to a full council meeting of Bristol City Council on Tuesday, February 25.

The Greens are asking for a 4.99 per cent council tax rise, including two per cent for social care. The current £4.7million libraries budget would have been slashed by £2.4million, with councillors told last month that this could leave just seven to 10 of the 26 branches open, plus the main Central one.

But the authority will instead use reserves to plug the gap for the financial year from April and set up a cross-party taskforce to review the future of the service. The proposed temporary closure of Blaise Museum, Georgian House and Red Lodge and phasing out all £635,000 of grant support to cultural organisations over the next three years have been postponed by 12 months so a working group of councillors can seek alternative funding options.

A £3.4million cut from the £44.1million Council Tax Reduction Scheme has also been removed from the cost-saving measures for 2025/26, with another task group to consider how best to support low-income families overall. And charges for disabled car parking bays have been abandoned completely.

But fees for meals on wheels are still in line to be hiked by 15 per cent, while a £1million saving for waste services would be met by reducing the frequency of black bin collections, with a consultation ongoing into options for three- or even four-weekly, along with larger recycling containers and soft-plastic recycling. The three other political groups have their own ideas on how to raise and save cash.

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Here is what Labour wants to do with your money.

Probably the most eye-catching of a raft of proposal is to spend £1million reopening or creating new public toilets – reversing a policy the party introduced under then-mayor Marvin Rees seven years ago to shut all 18 on-street lavatories and introduce the community toilet scheme, where businesses and organisations let passers-by use theirs. The opposition group gives councillors two main options to pay for this – either using money from reserves or taking out additional borrowing, with the expected cost of loan repayments to be met by a £54,000 cut in councillor allowances, while a separate suggestion would see members’ pay reduced by £12,000 to pay for new library books.

In comments on the plans in the amendment, council officers said the closures had saved £300,000 a year in maintenance costs. Labour wants to bridge that gap by using part of £1million a year it says can be recouped by buying more children’s homes at council housing company Goram Homes’ developments, with the money otherwise having to be spent on expensive private sector and out-of-area placements.

Money to purchase the children’s homes would come from cash the authority already has from sales of land for the Romney House/One Lockleaze development. The party suggests this could buy three homes for a total of between 10 and 15 youngsters in care.

Labour’s amendment said: “Average weekly running costs for internal children’s homes are £4,000 per child. The average cost of external residential care is approximately £7,000 per week per child.

“Providing an internal placement will produce a £156,000-a-year revenue saving. Placements for seven children will provide a saving of £1.092million a year.”

Of the remaining money from that £1million saving, the group would invest £273,000 in short respite breaks for carers of disabled children and halving the £1million budget cuts that would result in changes to black bin collections, which it said would no longer be needed. The party wants to increase fines for littering from £150 to £250 and install more fly-tipping enforcement cameras, with charges reinvested into cleaning up Bristol’s streets, although officers said higher fixed penalty notices would cause more non-payments so the numbers were unlikely to add up.

New night buses and a feasibility study into a municipal bus company have also been put forward, funded by a reserve for subsidised routes. The price rise for meals on wheels would be capped at 4.5 per cent instead of 15 per cent and the gutting of grants to community and voluntary organisations would be much lower, both of which would come from cash that would otherwise be set aside for unexpected financial pressures and demands next year.

An artificial intelligence pilot project would be scrapped, with the cash instead covering the planned 2025/26 reductions in budgets for domestic abuse services and the archives search rooms, keeping them open on Saturdays for another year. The Downs changing rooms would undergo £900,000-worth of refurbishments, funded by an unallocated levy on housing developers.

And £500,000 would be invested into Stapleton Allotments, helping the ‘blue finger’ land to fulfil its potential for local food growing, also paid for by developers’ contributions. Officers said the land was let under a protected agricultural tenancy, which the council could not terminate, so the tenants would have to agree to sell their rights, which may be “substantial” as there are rights of succession.

They said: “Given the potential need to clear dilapidated agricultural buildings, upgrade services and secure the site, £500,000 could prove insufficient.” Labour group leader Cllr Tom Renhard said: “Bristolians have been loud and clear – we don’t want our black bins collected once every four weeks.

“10,000 people signing our petition shows the strength of feeling about this issue – we hope the Greens will listen to the people of Bristol and drop their plans. Labour councillors are offering the Greens a way out.

“We’ve presented them with a plan to buy more children’s homes, saving the council £1million a year. This money would then be spent on our waste services, negating the need for less frequent bin collections, and respite breaks for carers of disabled children and reopening public toilets.

“This is a win-win situation, so we sincerely hope the Greens won’t play politics and throw out our commonsense amendments to their budget. Throughout their first year in charge, they’ve been asleep at the wheel.

“So, whilst we’re taking out some of their worst ideas, we’re also putting forward some fresh ideas for the council administration, who are clearly lacking inspiration.”

See what the Conservative group would do here.

And here’s what the Lib Dems would do.