THE leader of Swindon Borough Council has said he is reluctant to go down the route of spending reserves to tackle budget pressures.

On Wednesday, the Chancellor George Osborne said he was going to put pressure on local authorities to spend what they had in the bank.

However, Councillor David Renard (Con, Haydon Wick) believes this is a short term measure which could leave the council vulnerable at a later date.

“Although we know the years ahead are going to be difficult, having reserves are important,” he said.

“It means we are in a position to cope when something unexpected comes along. A classic example was the fire at Marshgate last year.

“Although the Environment Agency picked up most of the cost, some fell to us. Having something in reserve meant we could deal with it without having to make cuts elsewhere in the budget.

“So if, for example, Swindon was to get hit by floods we could respond quickly.”

Another announcement made on Wednesday was that Local Authorities would be able keep 100 per cent of revenue from assets sold, with the exception of council houses.

Once again, Coun Renard has said selling the family silver is a course of action which would not bring long-term benefits.

He said: “While the council does own many assets, a lot of them produce a revenue for the council and so help to fund services.

“Obviously, if something is just sitting idly then we will look at getting rid of it.

“Selling assets to deal with revenue issues is very short-sighted. For example, we could sell something for several hundred thousand pounds but this would only provide a few days of funding for adult social care and does not deal with the long term issues.”

The Swindon Labour Group Leader Jim Grant (Lab, Rodbourne Cheney) believes the approach from the chancellor does very little to help councils, especially when a portion of the main asset sale is already taken by the government.

He said: “The Chancellor’s new asset sale policy is largely meaningless as the council already can use the receipts of asset sales to help with their budget.

“It is also a hypocritical policy given that the main asset sale receipts the government take from local government is from Right to Buy council house sales, which they will continue to take a portion of even after this policy comes in to effect.”