EALING Council's leader and chief executive expressed their hopes for the borough's economy at a meeting with the business community.
Councillor Julian Bell and CEO Martin Smith first set a gloomy scene as they spelled out some of the tough challenges the local authority is facing at the business leaders' lunch hosted by the chamber of commerce.
Before telling about 50 guests the work they were doing to try to secure more investment for Ealing and pointing out the need for business and the council to work together.
At Thames Valley University's Pillars restaurant, in Warwick Road, Ealing, Mr Bell said losing 30 percent of government funding in the next three years meant Ealing Council was facing “enormous challenges”.
Speaking last Thursday, a day after the chancellor's budget, he said he welcomed the extension in small business rate relief as well as an extra £100m for pothole repairs across the country which would help with about 10 per cent of Ealing's damaged roads. But added: “When you compare that extra little bit of money for potholes with a huge cut of about £80 million in the next four years, you can see our difficulties.”
He said to help residents the town hall had frozen council tax; was fighting to get the cinema development moving again, including buying the old YMCA building in Bond Street and making the site more viable by connecting the two; had sent council officers to the MIPPIM development fair in Cannes for free by securing sponsorship and were in talks with developers about the future of the Arcadia site currently in limbo since the current owners hit financial trouble.
He also promised to engage more with the private sector in his bid to create more with less.
Mr Smith said he had to see the council through massive change, adding: “We're going to be much smaller, we're going to be operating differently but we will still be here. I believe we will be a better organisation at the end of it.
"Weathering the storm is the wrong metaphor, we're not going to be able to make cuts now and then reinstate when it gets better because afterwards we're not going to get any more money – this is more like fiscal climate change.”
He promised to capitalise on Dickens Yard and Crossrail developments and said the council was on target in adapting to the government funding cuts.
