It’s certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Peterborough following our big switch-on event last week.
Once again it was a huge success and fantastic to see the city centre packed with happy people of all ages, showing what fantastic community spirit, we have here.
Our Christmas tree and lights look amazing and I want to thank everyone involved in the switch-on; all your hard work over the past few months certainly paid off.
Don’t forget that we have a whole host of exciting festive events coming up over the next few weeks including a Christmas Craft and Gift Market, a Christmas Tree Festival at the Cathedral and a Light and Sound Display to name just a few.
After years of campaigning that Peterborough should be getting a better funding deal from Whitehall, I’m delighted to say that this Labour government has listened and is taking action.
The recently announced Fairer Funding plans mean that outdated funding formulas that penalised areas including our city for many years are being scrapped.
The new plans ensure that councils will be funded fairly, based on the latest deprivation data and local need, so that communities with the highest demands get the public services they rightly deserve.
For our Labour Government to hear our plight, and overhaul the whole system of funding for local government, is nothing short of remarkable. We are yet to see what this means in terms of actual funding from next year on, but we are confident it will go some way to addressing our ongoing financial challenges and allow us to start investing more in our city for the benefit of all our residents.
We look forward to next month when we can fully understand how Fairer Funding will impact our budget in 2026/27 and beyond.
Plans by the Combined Authority Mayor to provide funding for free parking in Peterborough have made headlines recently and I want to reiterate our position on this.
We would love to offer free parking if we could afford to, but we rely on the income which parking generates to provide essential services. The cost of 24/7 free parking in Peterborough would be £3.4million, which is a big income that we and our taxpayers simply cannot afford to give up.
The funding being offered by the Mayor over two years is a gimmick, only allowing for free parking for a few hours on a Monday. A much better use of the money would be to put it towards keeping the Tiger bus pass, which allows heavily subsidised bus journeys for under 25s. This would eliminate the need for a car to come into the city at all and would help our youngest residents get to school, college and work. I have had feedback from residents to say that we need more value put into our city and not just headlines. I agree with them.
A meeting took place last week to discuss this subject, and I made these points.
Finally, we were pleased to sponsor the recent PT Business Awards. We were delighted to see Little Miracles win in our sponsored Category of Best Social Enterprise Business and their wonderful work. I'm so happy that the Dahlia Project of Peterborough Women’s Aid won the award for the Business of the year.
I'd also like to give a shout out to the Unity Shop in Peterborough, who have been in the news lately regarding their Business Rates. Our officers have been in touch with the business to make them aware of other support measures that may be appropriate.
We are always happy to speak to businesses about possible plans and potential reliefs. Unity is an excellent example of giving space to local businesses to showcase their crafts and I offer them my full support.