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Our spending plans for 2025/26 have been unveiled - setting out how we will spend £187m delivering services across the district and £73m on capital projects. The budget is set to be considered for approval at a full Council meeting later this month.
In this bulletin we'll be telling you more about our spending plans for next year.
The plans contain a range of commitments focussing on the delivery of core infrastructure across the district, enhancing schools and other education facilities and developing provision for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Our capital programme will see £73m invested in the district to deliver infrastructure improvements.
We'll also explain why we have written to the Government to request Exceptional Financial Support.
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£73m to be spent on local infrastructure |
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A £73m capital programme will see projects delivered across the district, including:
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£18.6m delivering a new solar farm at Grazeley
- Improvements to local roads and pavements including:
- £12m on highway improvements
- £400,000 on pavement improvements
- £300,000 on bridge maintenance projects
- Improvements to local schools including:
- £2.3m replacing eight classrooms at Falkland Primary School which are currently in old, pre-fabricated modular buildings
- £1m providing two additional classrooms at Brookfields School
- £886,000 on four new classrooms at The Castle School
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£2.4m on a nutrient neutrality programme to develop and deliver projects to reduce the nutrients entering the River Lambourn
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£50,000 to provide real-time passenger information and other public transport infrastructure
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Next year we will be spending £187m delivering services for local residents. These services, used by residents daily, include waste and recycling collections, maintaining open spaces, housing, and education.
Listening to residents
As part of the preparation for this year’s budget, we consulted on a number of proposals affecting front line services. A total of 1,717 responses were received and after considering this feedback the following changes have been made:
- Downland Sports Centre will remain open – a proposal had been made to remove it from the Leisure Management Contract with Everyone Active.
- Streetlights will be dimmed in residential roads between 10pm and 6am, rather than being switched off completely between midnight and 5am.
- A proposal to cease providing the Adult Respite in the Community service – a short-term respite provision – will not be taken forward.
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We have a strong history of financial management whilst delivering significant savings programmes and continuing to protect front line services, in particular supporting vulnerable residents. Over recent financial years, significant pressures have been experienced in relation to adult and social care provision (a common theme nationally), and the Council’s reserves have been reduced.
Over the past five years, we have delivered savings of £25m representing 15.2% of the 2024-25 budget. To protect frontline services – and in particular to support vulnerable residents – the reserves we hold have been reduced. They are currently at £4m - or just 2% of the net revenue budget. In the current year, we've had to make the highest levels of savings in our history, and though good progress is being made, at Quarter Two there is a forecast overspend of £2.1m which will further reduce reserves. This puts our reserves position at an unsustainable level.
To address this, we have written to the Government requesting Exceptional Financial Support of £16m. If granted, this would see allocations to our reserves to support our financial resilience, and some support for the 2025-26 budget.
In making this request, we are one of many councils across the country which feels it has no choice but to seek additional funding. In 2024, 19 other councils felt it necessary to request Exceptional Financial Support and a number of others are expected to follow this year.
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Unveiling the budget for the year ahead, the Leader of West Berkshire Council, Councillor Jeff Brooks, said:
“In setting our budget we must find the right balance between protecting the most vulnerable people across our District, improving the services we provide to all our residents and investing in our local economy.
“We must also make sure that our reserves are healthy to respond to growing pressures, particularly within our children and adult care needs, and be available as 'rainy day money'.
"There are tremendous financial demands across the country within local Councils and we are not immune to these pressures. We are spending much more on children and adult care – investing over £8m extra in this area in the next year as demand continues to grow.
“We are also transforming the way we do things, and you should see continuing improvements in our services. Greater efficiency has enabled us to invest in our sports centres and our libraries as well as our roads.
“We must protect, invest in and improve our services and I am confident that this budget will achieve these aims. Together – councillors and council officers - we will continue to deliver services you can be proud of, and which we are proud to deliver.”
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Did you know Council Tax makes up more than half of the funding we receive each year?
Here's where our funding will come from in 2025/26...
...and it will get spent across the following areas.
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Revenue vs Capital Finance |
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A question we are sometimes asked is why we have to make difficult decisions about the services we provide whilst we continue to invest significantly in our local infrastructure.
It comes down to how these items of expenditure are funded and recorded in our annual financial accounts; the business as usual day-to-day services that we provide are paid for by the money we receive from council tax and business rates are classified as revenue expenditure. Whereas, infrastructure, such as new buildings, is funded either by borrowing the money or by selling other assets we hold, which is classified as capital expenditure.
You can find out more about this on the Local Government Association website.
And finally...
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The budget is due to be considered for approval by Council on 27 February and before that will be discussed by the Scrutiny Commission on 11 February and the Executive on 13 February. These meetings are open to the public to attend in person at our Market Street offices in Newbury, or to stream online via the Council's YouTube channel.
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