Cost of Covid to Scarborough Borough Council has halved, says finance director

Nick Edwards told a meeting of the borough authority’s cabinet today that the overall cost of the pandemic to the council had dropped from more than £10m estimated in September, to £8.6m.

The cabinet was told that the reasons for the change in fortune was primarily down to more income than had been forecast from street car parking, lower than forecasted expenditure on homelessness provision and an extra £644,000 in funding from the government.

In total, after government grants have been calculated the council has to find £3.6m to cover its budget shortfall.

The government allows authorities to spread council tax and business rate debt into future years so Scarborough Council is proposing to pay off £1.5m over the next three years.

That leaves £2.039m which it is proposed to be funded through borrowing, which would cost the council approximately £86,000 a year.

The amount of borrowing has reduced by more than £2m since the last financial monitoring report was produced in October.

There was, however, a note of caution to councillors about the potential impact of the new restrictions that are currently in place.

Mr Edwards told the cabinet: “This report comes with a bit of a health warning as this was prior to the lockdown situation but it does give a good indication as to what the Covid costs to this council are.”

A message from the editor

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the highest standards in the world.

The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers and consequently the advertising that we receive.

We are now more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you,

Jean MacQuarrie, Editor-in-Chief