“This year’s budget is already running into an £8 million overspend”

Let’s start with the magic of the Great Eastern Run. If you ran, watched, sponsored, or volunteered to help make this event so special, then thank you, writes Conservative Group's John Howard.

It seems the Great Eastern Run has enjoyed its biggest year ever, and that can only mean that the quarter of a million pounds of charity donations record may also be beaten! I was saddened after my last column for our family to have received some incredibly sad news, which meant I couldn’t attend the Great Eastern Run.

It means I will have to do some more running separately for Anna’s Hope. I am glad that my fellow fairies, Councillors Kevin Tighe and Mark Ormston ran superbly and raised a sizeable charity pot between them. After a very tough few weeks, it was great to see them at the council meeting post-GER and hear how they got on. I have every hope they will run next year (do encourage them if you see them out and about!) and the three amigos/fairies will have another attempt in 2027. Nothing I do as a councillor will ever better my contribution to help bring back the Great Eastern Run, but Peterborough, it won’t stop me trying! Here’s to the Great Eastern Run 2027.

And now, to a much drier subject, everyone’s finances. Life is getting tougher. Every time we go for a family food shop, it’s costing more. Every time you fuel the car it’s costing more. Even the weather is more turbulent, we are now being advised to stock 3 days of essentials to prepare for severe weather or worse still with cyber-attacks. Probably sensible advice, but last time there was any element of ‘stocking up’ it didn’t end well, so let’s hope everyone takes it in the right spirit and behaves sensibly.

On the theme of finances, let alone global affairs which have taken their toll these last few years, this week we will see what impact the Chancellor’s budget has on the public. The Tik Tok sheen of our new Prime Minister may start to fade as we start to hear what angles he takes to rebalance the public finances. And if that wasn’t enough to deal with, cabinet will have met this week as we go to press to propose a budget consultation ahead of the budget setting for next year.

Much political play has been made of previous decisions and policies, but already, a decision made in the earlier budget this year is already having serious consequences on the public finances of our city. This year’s budget had the bold statement that for the first time in many years, the budget would contain no cuts to services. The pledge itself, politically nobody could disagree with. Nobody comes into public life to drive through cuts to services, the opposite, everyone, in their own way, wants to better services. But this pledge of no cuts to services already looks to have been a very bad call. This year’s budget is already running into an £8 million overspend. Perhaps after all, like budgets before, savings should have been made. There are 8 million reasons that this should have happened.

For the upcoming years, the deficit grows, up to a chilling £15 million predicted shortfall in a couple of years’ time. And this in the backdrop of local government reorganisation which may or may not happen, who even knows anymore! These are sobering times, and for the coalition of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Peterborough First, they may be starting to realise just how tough it is being in office.