"Unused" Slough play equipment could be taken away amid cuts

At an extraordinary place scrutiny panel meeting on Wednesday, December 1, councillors were presented the savings required in place and community directorate within the 2022/23 budget.

It proposes £5.75m in this field where the council is eyeing to cut back hundreds of thousands of pounds in services such as street cleaning, hedge trimming, allotments, as well as increase charges for waste services.

In order to save £26,000 on maintenance costs, the council could remove equipment from some of the borough’s 70 playgrounds. It is unknown which ones, but councillors were told it would be ones that are not used a lot.

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Speaking at the meeting, executive director of customer and community Richard West said: “There is an amount of money we spend on repairs and maintenance to keep things going and safe.

“At a point, we will have to stop doing that and the only way to remedy that would be to remove the equipment.”

Previously, grass in the borough was cut 15 times a year and highway and park hedges were trimmed up to three times a year. The council will be reducing grass cutting 10 times a year and cutting hedges only once a year in order to save nearly half a million pounds.

Less street cleaning operatives and sweepers will be deployed to make a saving to the tune of £400,000. Routes could be rescheduled to reduce frequent sweeping and the council could swap to team responses to deal with reported incidents.

Richard West

Mr West said: “There’s another opportunity to have a mobile crew turn up to a series of locations to spend an hour there rather than a day there.”

Charges to bulk waste, weighbridge, trade waste, and an opportunity to charge at the household waste recycling centre are also being considered by the council to rake in £132,000.

Mr West said he does not believe fly-tipping will increase if they go down this route as this offence is usually done by commercial waste operatives or “unscrupulous” landlords rather than residents.

Allotment holders could be charged to use water, which is usually paid by the council. It is unknown how much, but it could save the council £20,000.

The council is considering pulling its £42,000 funding from the Slough bus station where the station could ‘self-finance’ itself.

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Three to four floors of the council’s headquarters, Observatory House in Windsor Road, could be rented by commercial companies after officers contracted an agent to put the floors on the market.

As the council downsizes, more office space will be freed up, allowing companies to take up that space and pump a possible £380,000 into the local authority’s budget.

Mr West said: “We will be testing with the market what the appetite is and therefore what they’re prepared to pay per square rate.

“There has been some activity in the market locally, including in Windsor which is seeing quite a significant pound per square foot rates being achieved.

“The first thing to do is get people in and see what they’re prepared to offer. So, we’re going through a process now of engaging with an agent to do that and then we’ll take it from there.”

Erecting digital billboards at possibly 70 sites on the highway is also being considered to pump cash into the council. It is not known how much money the council could earn from this, but this would require planning permission.