By Alex Klaushofer
Councils are bidding for a bigger role in busting the recession, with a call from the Local Government Association for the government to channel more public spending through town halls.
Councils are bidding for a bigger role in busting the recession, with a call from the Local Government Association for the government to channel more public spending through town halls.The LGA said that targeting funds at small-scale local projects was a better way of creating employment than investing in big national infrastructure projects that would take time to get off the ground.
Spending £100m on improving town centres could safeguard 60,000 jobs, it estimated, while every £1m invested in road maintenance could create up to 15 jobs.
Extending the national home insulation scheme to 5 million homes by 2011 would create a further 4,000 jobs, the LGA said.
Chair Margaret Eaton said: ‘Town halls have a whole range of projects on the stocks and ready to go that would bolster employment, bring millions of pounds into local economies and help to alleviate the effects of the recession.’
She added that, to have the biggest effect, ‘the money needs to be spent on projects that will create the most number of jobs in the public and private sectors and that are ready and waiting to get under way now’.
The LGA also called for measures to boost the economy, such as shorter planning
processes and cutting red tape to allow people recently made redundant to get advice and benefits in a one-stop shop.
