The Hangover: Local Councils

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Covid has been an economic crisis as well as a health emergency.

In a new four-part series Felicity Hannah meets families, businesses & local councils whose lives and fortunes have been changed completely by the pandemic.

This week, she meets the leaders of three local councils – Wirral, Lancashire and Newcastle - to find out what Covid has done to their budgets and how that will hit their communities. We hear how some councils saved money because families were too scared to send elderly relatives into care homes, while most faced huge extra costs and have struggled to recoup income lost through local lockdowns. How will they cope as they face a £3 billion funding gap over the next few years?

Producer Helen Grady Researcher Louise Byrne Editor Alex Lewis

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:07.0	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.0	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:14.0	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for Lucan.
0:21.6	It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime.
0:25.6	I'm Alex von Tundselman.
0:27.6	This is The Lucan Obsession.
0:28.6	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.6	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:44.1	Before COVID, we were just about managing.
0:45.4	We'd balanced our books.
0:47.8	COVID has taken that away from us.
0:50.8	Put us in a situation where we've had to borrow money from the government.
0:52.5	Which is not good, is it?
0:53.6	It's just not.
0:59.4	We're swimming in the dark against the tide with a blindfold on, dealing with the next phase of challenges, as well as the repercussions of the pandemic and trying to lead the economic
1:05.3	recovery.
1:06.2	I am really concerned that we will not have the money to deliver the basic public services that people
1:13.1	need.
1:15.1	COVID has meant we've all lived more locally than ever. We stayed local for our daily walks. Many
1:20.9	of us tried to shop local and support small businesses. And we also looked to local leaders,
	...

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