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February 2020 February 2020
Committee to overturn the Officers recommendations to get rid of this requirement
to prevent new houses being used as second homes for a development in
Lulworth. We now await the results of the Inspectors review of our Local Plan to see
whether he will support this being a key policy in our Local Plan for all new
developments.

Budget

Each year, the Council and other local authorities - such as the Dorset & Wiltshire
Fire and Rescue Service and Dorset Police - review their financial plans and
budget assumptions and plan by how much they need to increase their council
tax. There are many factors involved in building the budgets for these
organisations – including increases in prices for the services they buy-in, pay
inflation, cost of delivering any new requirements driven by Government and
increases in the fees and charges they earn.
In balancing their budgets (a legal requirement that expenditure must broadly
balance with annual income) these authorities will set a budget for income from
council tax. However, council tax isn’t simply “the balancing figure” in the
authority’s budget, there are rules set out in each Local Government Finance
Settlement covering maximum allowable increases in council tax.
Local authorities cannot increase their council tax by more than a set amount
without triggering the need for a local referendum of council tax payers to see if
they are in favour of it. For 2020/21, this referendum limit is 2% and Government is
also enabling Councils to charge a further 2% for the Adult Social Care
Precept. For Dorset Council, the proposal Cabinet is therefore currently
considering is an annual increase for a Band D property from £1,629.75 to
£1,694.79, the equivalent of £1.25 per week. Thus, the overall increase is planned to
be around 4%, although this will be the subject of a formal vote at full Council on
February 18th.
As well as increasing council tax, the council has also made significant efficiencies
and cost reductions in other areas of its business. All of these are set out in the
Cabinet and Council reports which are available at Dorset 4 You website. I will
issue a fuller report in the next months article subject to the outcome of the
forthcoming Council meeting.

Minerals
Dorset Council and BCP Council as Mineral and Waste Planning Authorities
adopted the Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset Mineral Sites Plan 2019
and the Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset Waste Plan 2019 on 31st
December 2019.

Both the Waste Plan and the Mineral Sites Plan were examined by independent

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