With the festivities and fireworks over, our attention turns now to the year head.
Named after the Roman God Janus who looks both backwards and forwards, January is a time to reflect on the past year and to make plans and resolutions for the future.
Looking back, I will remember 2012 as a golden year for our area as we joined in national celebrations marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics.
Leighton Buzzard was represented by its local torchbearers carrying the Olympic Flame through Central Bedfordshire and by local gold medallist Charlotte Dujardin who triumphed in the dressage.
It’s also been a great cultural year for Leighton Buzzard with the launch of the Sculpture Trail and with upgrades for the library and theatre which is now showing live screenings from the West End.
The council’s first task of the New Year is to set its budget for 2013/14.
Our spending plans – now out for public consultation – hold firm on a number of our long-standing resolutions. These include freezing the council’s share of council tax for the third year running, protecting frontline services and equalising council tax rates so that residents in the south of the area pay the same slightly lower rate as those in the north.
In effect this is a reduction for residents in the south of Central Bedfordshire for the second year.
With increasing pressure on care services and increasing costs linked to inflation and other factors we need to reduce spending by around £14million to balance the books.
Most of this will come from cost-saving measures such as renegotiating contracts, using technology to cut running costs, merging services and investing in preventative solutions to reduce people’s reliance on costly care and support services.
Although we are still calculating the impact of the government’s funding settlement, we are still planning to spend £176 million from April on a wide range of services including refuse collection, roads, libraries and providing care for older people and for disabled children and adults.
We are also planning £81million of capital investments in areas like road maintenance, street lighting, new residential care facilities and improvements to Tiddenfoot Leisure Centre.
Our budget proposals are online at www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/consultations and the budget consultation runs until January 31.
Whatever your resolutions or plans for the year ahead, I’d like to wish all readers a healthy and happy 2013.
Find out more about Central Bedfordshire Council at www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk.