Dumfries and Galloway Council considers reducing music festival support and bin collections

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The cash-strapped council is considering ending some of its support for the Youth Beatz music festival.

And reducing household bin collections to once every three weeks is also on the table.

They are two of nearly 50 options that the public is being asked for its views on as part of a consultation on the budget.

Other ideas on the list include mothballing more schools, cutting the number of household waste recycling centres and introducing parking charges.

The council needs to chop £10 million from its budget in each of the next three years and is looking for public opinion on 48 potential “savings options”.

If all were selected, they would generate £5.3 million of savings in 2025/26, rising to £16.524 million in 2027/28.

The consultation webpage states: “With increasing demand for services in our large rural area and reduced funding, it’s time to rethink how we deliver those services.

“The reality is we need to change, cut or even stop some services, and generate extra income from fees and charges.

“We value your input and we want to understand how the potential savings that we have identified might affect you.”

Youth Beatz, which takes place at Park Farm in Dumfries every summer, is billed as Scotland’s biggest free music festival.

But one of the options out for consultation is “end policy investment funding for the Youth Beatz festival”.

It adds: “End funding allocated to deliver the free annual Youth Beatz festival, aimed at young people aged between 12 and 25.”

It is claimed this would save £160,000 a year.

Another option is to “implement three-weekly collection of residual waste”.

Currently the council collects general waste every fortnight, with bins for plastic and paper emptied every month.

The consultation adds: “Reduce the frequency of domestic residual waste collection from two weeks to three weeks to encourage increased recycling and reduce our council’s waste disposal costs.”

It is thought this option would save £950,000 in 2027/28.

Other options include reduce layby bins – saving £42,000 a year – and either closing some public toilets and community halls or transferring them to community ownership – something which could save more than £700,000 a year.

And also under consideration is changing the council’s school mothballing policy.

At present, when a school roll drops to 10 pupils or fewer, a school can be considered for mothballing. A savings option suggests the threshold is changed to 25 pupils, which could save £2 million by 2027/28.

One other idea is parking charges to “including an ‘invitation to pay’ option, or a phased implementation of mandatory parking charges across the region with pilot activity starting in Dumfries.

The consultation, available at www.dumgal.gov.uk/budget, will run until December 6, with the results revealed at a full council meeting the following week.

The responses provided will help guide councillors in setting the 2025/26 budget in February.

Council leader, Councillor Gail Macgregor, said: “Due to the huge financial pressures faced by all local authorities, we’ve already had to save £130m over the last 15 years.

“To balance our books we need to find more savings.

“Over the next three financial years we face a £30 million budget deficit – that’s a further £10 million we need to save each year until 2028.

“With increasing demand for services in our large rural area and reduced funding, it’s time to rethink how we deliver services.

“The reality is we need to change, reduce or even stop some services and generate extra income from fees and charges.

“We value everyone’s input, and we want to understand how the potential savings that our council has identified affect people.

“We are committed to listening to the views of the public, staff and stakeholders.

“Their feedback will help us to prioritise, find savings and identify ways of generating extra income when councillors set the council’s spending plans at our annual budget meeting in late February 2025.”

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