Debts and rates of Limavady’s council partners revealed

Limavady Borough Council’s debt is significantly lower than its soon-to-be partner in local government of Coleraine, where the total debt is £35,838,783.

Limavady’s debt stands at £12,660,161 compared to £9,535,362 for Ballymoney and £8,659,895 for Moyle.

Those three councils, Limavady, Ballymoney and Moyle, secured the finance from the government loan fund (GLF), although Coleraine Borough Council owe £14,275,438 as part of their debt which was taken out outside of the GLF scheme.

The rates being charged by Limavady Borough Council are currently 27.7302 for non-domestic properties and 0.4050 for domestic properties.

This compares to non-domestic rates in Coleraine of 23.8497 and domestic rates of 0.3146. In Ballymoney the rates are 27.4720 and 0.3525 respectively, while in Moyle the figures are 31.0552 for non-domestic properties and 0.3832 for domestic properties.

Under the new system, whereby the four councils are combined to form one super-council or council-cluster, rates would be set by the elected representatives for the entire area.

In the last financial year, Limavady Borough Council collected a total of £7,617,732.46 in rates, compared to £17,554,723.26 in Coleraine, £6,096,734.96 in Ballymoney and £4,726,258.55 in Moyle.

The figures were released by Environment Minister Alex Attwood, whose Department will oversee the transition from the current 26 council model to one with fewer but bigger council areas, at Stormont this week. He also gave an update on the projected costs of implementing the proposed changes.

He said: “The PricewaterhouseCoopers economic appraisal of local government service delivery, carried out on behalf of and published by the Department in October 2009, indicated that under the preferred option (i.e. Transformation with Regional Collaboration), implementation of the local government reform programme could involve expenditure of up to £118 million over five years and achieve savings of £438 million over twenty-five years.

“The Regional Transition Committee has commissioned the senior local and central government officers and officials in the Finance Working Group to re-examine the costs and benefits of the local government reform programme taking account a range of financial factors. These include the 2015 timescale for reform set out in the Programme for Government 2011-15, the sector’s Improvement, Collaboration and Efficiency proposals and the changed economic climate in which reform is now being taken forward.

“Work is ongoing with the existing councils and the Voluntary Transition Committees in developing the detailed costs and benefits of the key reform work-streams, identified by the Finance Working Group. The group’s findings and recommendations will be presented to the Regional Transition Committee in March 2013.

“In relation to Executive funding for local government reform, my bids to the Executive for local government reform funding in the past two Monitoring Rounds were not successful. However, I continue to press for my paper, seeking the Executive’s agreement to fund the transition costs that will not release any long term cash savings to be formally considered by the Executive.”