WEST Devon Borough Council has said it has managed to balance this year’s budget and reduce the forecasted gap for the next, despite tough decisions and ‘record cuts in government funding’.

The borough council (WDBC) has set a balanced budget for this year and has managed to reduce the forecasted budget gap for next year by nearly half a million pounds.

A spokesperson for the council said the situation was ‘tough’ for rural councils like WDBC as they had large areas to cover which weren’t densely populated so less people to pay council tax to cover the costs. They said in terms of sparsity WDBC was third at the top of the table of councils who were covering the largest area with the smallest population. The council had also seen a 38% cut in its finances.

In a bid to tackle the funding gap, the council recently looked into borrowing money for investment in projects for Tavistock and Okehampton but the proposals were met with opposition from the public and were thrown out.

The borough council, along with South Hams District Council, recently invited a team of councillors and officers from around the country, called a peer review team, to review everything that the councils do. This included the councils’ management and finances.

The peer review team provided the councils with a report of their findings.

The report stated: ‘It is a credit to both council (West Devon and South Hams) that frontline services have been protected in the main since austerity 2010 … The Section 151 Officer (finance officer) and her team have a good grip on the finances of both councils. They are to be congratulated on guiding the council finances to this point.’

Cllr Philip Sanders, leader of West Devon Borough Council, said: ‘It is astonishing that this year we have not only managed to set a balanced budget but we have also managed to reduce the forecast budget gap for next year from £1-million in West Devon to just over £533,000.

‘Together officers and councillors are absolutely committed to protecting your services and looking after taxpayers’ money but in the current climate, this has not been easy.

‘The fact of the matter is that we have faced record cuts in our government funding since 2010 and we do not have a lot of money. What we want to achieve in our borough — and what we can achieve — are two completely different things. This is why we were looking to borrow money for investment in specific projects in Tavistock and Okehampton.

‘The idea was that these projects would pay for themselves outside of the budget we have for services. Therefore despite our limited finances we were looking for ways to support the local economy.

‘The total amount of money we have to provide all of the services we run is £7.3-million. In order to make this balance, we have made some cuts. We have increased council tax but we have remained focused on reducing costs where we can to keep this council on course.

‘This year we have been given a little more in our Rural Services Delivery Grant as a one-off extra. We get this money because government recognises that it is harder to deliver services in rural areas where properties are spread over a large area.

‘There is no doubt about it, the future is tough. We have balanced our books this year and we will continue to lobby government to recognise how difficult it is for rural councils like ours but essentially we are on our own and we have to make our money and assets work better for us in order to balance the budget next year.’

Sophie Hosking, chief executive of West Devon Borough Council, said: ‘At one point we were facing the real possibility that it would be extremely difficult to balance the budget for West Devon Borough Council this year but, thanks to very careful financial planning and prudent commercial investment, our councillors and officers have worked together to deliver this budget.’

The budget proposals for 2019-20 can be found by visiting http://mg.swdevon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=271&MId=1198&Ver=4