Littlehampton mayor’s fury over Arun’s council cuts

During last week’s cabinet meeting at the Civic Centre, in Maltravers Road, Arun councillors agreed to cut its £147,165 support for the town council by 2016/17.

A decision was also taken to cut Rustington Parish Council’s support, amounting to £48,127 a year.

Town mayor Joyce Bowyer – who is also an Arun councillor for Brookfield ward – said: “This is a huge amount of money that we’re talking about. It’s not peanuts.

“This totals about 15 per cent of our precept for the year. So it came as a real bolt out of the blue when Arun announced it would be cut.

“We put on a lot of events for the people of Littlehampton like the Town Show and Armed Forces Day which Arun doesn’t help with. So it’s come as a huge blow.

“We’re obviously going to have to cut back on the services that we provide because of this.”

Cllr Bowyer said that no discussion had yet been made about what services could be affected.

However, one option on the cards could be to cut its support for the toilets and free parking in the town – which is jointly maintained by Arun.

“We spend £40,000 on the toilets and nearly £30,000 on the free parking,” she added. “But obviously we haven’t made any decision about how we will allocate our funds for next year.”