£6.3m Building Projects in Limbo

This means that the capital budget has shrunk by £18.85 million since June.

At that time, the capital budget stood at £115.31 million.

Cllr Thomas said that 42 per cent which equates to £40.66 million of the capital budget comes from borrowing and that the interest costs is charged to the revenue budget which funds frontline council services.

Cllr Thomas said: “Continued increasing inflation is having a significant impact on the cost of schemes as material and construction costs rise.“Some schemes may be reduced or paused until there greater certainty about cost and funding.“Any additional funding required is likely to increase borrowing, this will increase costs on the revenue budget.”“The previous report showed that the financial position on the revenue budget is forecasting a £7million deficit.“In order to reduce expenditure some pipeline capital schemes that have not progressed to approval stage have been delayed.“This will reduce the immediate need to borrow delivering an underspend on borrowing costs of £0.5 million.”

Cllr Thomas said that the council had made £810,000 in capital receipts and that more sales would take the figure up to £870,000 and he hoped that the figure would rise to £2million by the end of the financial year.