Shadow of past mistakes hangs over West Sussex County Hall Budget, say Lib Dems

At a full council meeting this Friday, 13th December, the Conservative administration at West Sussex County Council will once again be looking for ways to reduce spending ahead of next year’s Budget. Councils across the country face tough spending decisions, but WSCC’s task is made all the harderby a huge overspend on a replacement for the council’s IT system.
An independent auditor’s report by Ernst & Young, published last month, was highly critical of the Council’s management of the project since 2019. Originally costed at just £2.6m, the latest estimates stand at £40m in addition to a delay ofmany years in delivery.
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Hide AdTo find the extra funds, WSCC is looking to accelerate the development of assets such as the defunct Novartis site and the old fire station in Hurst Road, central Horsham. The plan for the Novartis site as agreed 2 years ago set aside onethird for commercial development, to bring jobs back to town and protect Horsham as a thriving business centre. Now WSCC is applying to develop the whole site for housing in an attempt to overcome its own budgetary mistakes.

County Cllr Jay Mercer (Lib Dem, Horsham East) comments:“To go from £2.6m to £40m is an astonishing cost over-run, and we don’t even have anything to show for it yet. Clearly the original budget was hopelessly over-optimistic. This makes the HS2 blunder look like a model of brilliant financial management.
“Horsham will pay the price for Conservative mistakes with the loss of commercial development at Novartis, which is so important to Horsham’s business prospects, along with the hasty sale of the old fire station site. Yet all the Conservative councillors who presided over this chaos still have their jobsin the Cabinet, and we haven’t even had an apology out of them.
“At a time when Council finances are under enormous pressure after a decade of government cuts, this kind of self-inflicted wound by WSCC’s Conservative administration hurts us all the more.”