I've begun to get into the detail for the next financial year, and I'm amazed they've found it so difficult to come up with something more coherent.

The finances were left in an incredibly good state for the incoming administration. They had a problem after a few weeks with the cash collection company going bust – to be fair they could not have foreseen that – but given the bonus we left them with that shouldn't have stood in the way of putting forward a sound budget – but it seems to have done.

I don't really know where to start… I'll cover many of the aspects on my blog over the next few days - www.iloveeastbourne.co.uk and next week in this column – so for now let's touch on just a few issues here.

It appears the council want to increase income from the theatres by a massive £155,000 (every single year) – this is an astonishing amount. Every year there is an increase put forward, but £155K – that means a massive hike in theatre prices for you and me.

There is also the prospect – no, sorry, the certainty, of charging for Airbourne. There's an income target of £183,000 (from scratch). What does this mean? Well it means charging you and me to go and see what we've seen for free in the past.

Charging for Airbourne was something that has been suggested before, but when I was leader of the council, we dismissed it as a bad idea unless it could be done in a way that was acceptable. What I mean by that is that if it were just the Western Lawns that you had to pay for, and got to see some additional entertainment, then that would be OK.

Or if it was free for Eastbourne residents, who pay anyway through their council tax, but charging visitors a small amount – this might be do-able. But we never introduced it, due to the practicalities of making it work.

It takes years to build up something as good as Airbourne, and to risk losing it overnight is a chance we couldn't take. That's no longer the case, so it seems. I shouldn't think the RAF is that happy about it either – another relationship we spent years investing in. They are there because it's a massive recruiting ground for them – as well as the enormous PR. If the crowds fall away they will be less interested in the future.

It seems the Lib Dems want to barricade the whole seafront off and charge everyone between the Pier and the Wish Tower – in my view that would be wrong. Airbourne had grown into the biggest free seafront airshow in the world over the last few years – another wonderful accolade we're waving goodbye to.

And also on increased income – remember all the promises of no pay to park in Eastbourne during the election campaign last year (which the Lib Dems were duly elected in on?) Guess what, the Lib Dems themselves (the local councillors, they can't blame the County Council for this), are putting in parking charges on Sundays – something we never would have done - so much for the 'no pay to park' slogans of a few months ago.

There's so much more to say on the budget… but I'll end this week with the scandal of the council ending conference support in the town. Eastbourne has always supported conferences locally, by among other things, having a conference organiser – but now it seems we're dumping that position to save a few grand, and in the process upsetting all the key hotels and conference facilities we have.

I thought this council was going to invest in the economy of our town, not destroy it? The worst thing is they've dumped it on the town, not even discussed it or consulted upon it with those affected at all. Apparently the hotels read about this in the paper – it was the first they knew of it! Shocking!

We didn't get everything right when we run the council – far from it, but I always found that by communicating openly and honestly with people, you build relationships that are solid, and when there's bad news it can be dealt with in a spirit of working together to do the best for the town.

The worst thing you can do is dump bad news on local people (residents and businesses) without any communication at all. A token 250 people were consulted upon on this whole budget – we always had at least 1000 residents, and in depth consultation with businesses, the hotel association, voluntary groups etc etc.

Next week I shall write about what I think is the biggest sham of all in the budget – but for a sneak preview see my blog during the week!

Enough for now. Have a good week!

Also see: Council wields the axe

Ian Lucas writes his own blog at www.iloveeastbourne.co.uk