Herefordshire Council says it needs more funding from central government

Herefordshire Council leaders say they will need more funding from central government to cope with the financial burden caused of the coronavirus response.

The government announced a further £1.6bn of support for local government last month.

Of this, Herefordshire is set to be £5.34m, bringing the total grant to just over £11m.

But council chief executive Alistair Neill said the high levels of expenditure cannot be met indefinitely without appropriate funding.

“The resource implications are enormous for council’s across the country,” he said.

“The impact on us by financial terms is still being calculated. It’s a moving number. ”

He said the council would remain vigilant to the rising costs but stressed they had been supporting people in ways they never had done such as providing food.

“There are all sorts of areas where we’ve had to make further investments.

“The government has been able to support us in the initial period but I would make the point our estimate of the impact of finances simply for the first three months of Covid-19 are such that we will require further funding from government.”

He said the council was currently in a relatively sound position but it could not sustain the growing costs indefinitely.

“We recognise that the secretary of state Robert Jenrick has made very clear commitments that the expenditure that local government needs to make across the country will be costs the government meets in due course.”

He said the council will be pressing the government.