New website helps local authority understand residents' priorities

Would you cut spending on community safety to spend more on child protection? Where would you be prepared to see council services cut back to avoid a council tax rise?

These are the kinds of choices faced by the council as it tries to find savings of £18 million for the next financial year, following a cut in funding from central Government.

You Choose is a website being used to help the council understand local people’s priorities. It lets people try to balance the council’s budget, and see the impact of any changes they make.

The leader of the council, Cllr Jagdish Sharma, said: "This tool will not only help us understand the areas people want to protect, but will help people understand how difficult it will be to make the decisions we are facing.

"As a councillor, I’m used to people coming up to me saying 'why don't you do this', so now we’re giving them an opportunity to show us how.

"By asking as many people as possible for their thoughts on how to deal with the Government’s cuts, we are hoping to find some new ideas that could make a real difference.

"There will be some difficult decisions ahead, but we can’t make these without getting as much feedback from residents as we can."

YouChoose went live on 6 December at www.hounslow.gov.uk/youchoose and the results will be collected to see which areas are a priority for residents and where and savings could be made.

December 7, 2010