Waverley Borough Council is engaging with residents to help define the budget priorities for its services over the next few years.

The council, faced with a reduction in government funding, wants to make sure it understands how local people value specific services and how changing or reducing any of its non-statutory services would impact on the community.

The council wants to hear your views about services, including grants to local voluntary organisations, arts, cultural and community groups; enforcement services such as hygiene inspections and planning enforcement; and maintenance services such as street cleaning, grass cutting and conservation of the countryside.

Independent market research company MEL Research has also been specially commissioned to conduct face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of residents, which are currently taking place, but all Waverley residents are being urged to get involved by completing the same survey online.

The survey is available online, from now until 11.59 on Sunday 3 November at: www.waverley.gov.uk/spendingsurvey

Councillor Mark Merryweather, Waverley Borough Council Portfolio Holder for Finance, Assets and Commercial, said:

Like all local authorities, we are facing a fall in government funding and are projecting a growing funding gap, which totals more than £4.8 million over the next four years.

While we’re working on a range of strategies to cut costs and develop new revenue streams to address the shortfall, we also want to be absolutely certain that in doing so, we reflect the spending priorities of our residents.

Councillor Paul Follows, Waverley Borough Council Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Engagement, said:

We really want to understand what our services mean to our residents – it’s not just about pounds and pence. This is an opportunity to tell us what you think about our services and we’ll be reading the comments with interest.

If a service is of particular importance to you, or you believe there’s a way one of our services could be delivered more effectively, we want to hear from you.