CHANCELLOR George Osborne opened up a box of early Christmas presents for Teignbridge and the south west this week in his autumn spending review.

Local goodies unveiled by the government’s main purse-string holder, who also announced a U-turn on tax credit cuts, were £76 million for the South Devon Link Road improving traffic flow between Newton Abbot and Torquay, slashing £50 off water bills and reducing business rates for nearly 80,000 small firms across the region.

He said in Wednesday’s statement: ‘My Spending Review today puts security first. It delivers economic security so Britain lives within its means, financial security for families, and national security for all.

‘At the centre of our plans to help working people at every stage of their lives are further investments in schools for our children, a world-class National Health Service, new protections for police and defence budgets and the biggest rise in state pensions since 2001.’

And he added: ‘The south west is a key part of that plan and that’s why today I have confirmed major investments there in areas like transport, education, culture as well as driving down the costs of local water bills. This is a Spending Review which delivers for the people of the south west.’

National parks, including Dartmoor, will be given new powers to allow them to build more sustainable ‘revenue streams.’

And funding for public forests will be protected which is seen as good news for Devon’s timber-processing industry.

But not everyone was thrilled to bits with his announcements.

Devon and Cornwall Police could still face a budget crisis, former Lib Dem Teignbridge MP Richard Younger-Ross maintained.

The Devon county councillor said news that the Chancellor was not cutting police budgets by a further 25 per cent may be interpreted as good news, but the budget cuts already announced last year and the proposed cut to Devon and Cornwall’s grant, because the way the funding formulae are proposed to change, are still to be felt in the region.

He said: ‘There is a still a threat to front line services and the Chancellor’s announcement does nothing to stop that. Further deep cuts may have been avoided, but there are still cuts in progress from earlier decisions. We need to see the fine print in the supporting documents for the final figures.’

He added: ‘It looks like the police can charge local council tax payers more to alleviate the impact of the cuts going through. In a region of low incomes this will be a bitter blow for many families – and doubly so when the councils may also charge an additional two per cent on the council tax to help social care costs.

‘This could add up to an extra £100 a year for the average household. This may not hurt many in the high income areas where the Chancellor lives but it will hurt most people living here.’

Chartered accountancy firm Simpkins Edwards – which has offices throughout Devon, including Heathfield – was guarded in its response to the Chancellor’s announcements.

Partner Adrian Hemmings said: ‘Our immediate reaction is that it leads with attractive headlines and lots of smaller pieces of good news but lacks any real element of pain – in other words – how are all these schemes going to be paid for?’

He added: ‘We have the government bowing to pressure by making a U-turn on tax credit cuts, the promise to donate revenue from the so-called ‘tampon tax’ to women’s charities, a commitment to 30 hours’ free childcare, the pledge to fix Britain’s pothole problem – and in the south west we will continue to receive help with our water bills.

‘It’s reminiscent of the budgets of the early Labour government when everybody got a handout to keep them happy and deflected the spotlight away from other measures that may not have gone in their favour.’

He said: ‘We didn’t get the expected pain from changes to capital gains tax, pension relief or national insurance and there’s no real sense of where all this money is going to come from.

‘We are apparently £27 billion better off than expected due to lower borrowing costs and other positive “movements” but it looks like they have pledged to spend more than that. 

‘We expect the devil about how this shortfall will be made up to be in the detail, and await the red book with interest.’

Chartered accountants Francis Clark, with offices in Newton Abbot, described the Chancellor’s statement as ‘surprisingly low-key.’

‘There were no shock announcements and taxes were relatively untouched,’ said a spokesman.