South Gloucestershire residents warned more cuts could be on the way

South Gloucestershire Council leader Cllr Maggie Tyrrell warned of yet more future cuts as the Lib Dem/Labour cabinet approved the draft annual budget. The plans, including a 4.99 per cent council tax hike, a rise in garden waste collection fees from £60 to £70, the first ever charges at the authority’s car parks, and axing funding to maintain public toilets and playing fields, now go to a vote at full council on Wednesday, February 19.

The budget will be balanced over two years, with the use of reserves necessary for the second year. But the authority faces having to make about £12million more savings by 2028/29 to break even, on top of slashing £40.3million from its spending from previous budgets that needs to be delivered plus another £1.1million in the year from April rising to £5.6million in four years’ time.

Cllr Tyrrell (Lib Dem, Thornbury) told the meeting on Monday, February 3: “Although the government grant for 2025/26 is very slightly higher than we had anticipated, there is little fundamental difference in our financial situation. In common with the vast majority of councils, our situation is not great.

“We are going to break even this year and we anticipate that we will do the same next year but we will have to dip into our reserves to do so. The following year we have the budget gap.

“So we can’t rest on our laurels, we have to keep looking for savings and that is exactly what we have been doing. We are on track to get those savings in place that have been identified and we will continue to look for further savings in the future to close that gap.”

She said the government had continued to cap council tax at 4.99 per cent, including two per cent for social care, despite allowing some authorities to increase bills by up to 10 per cent. Cllr Tyrrell said: “As it has been over a good number of years, we are forced into a position of taking the maximum that we can, simply because of the ongoing pressures and the lack of funding that has been coming into local government generally.”

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The government has announced multi-year financial settlements for councils from 2026/27, something authorities across the country have been demanding to give them more certainty on financial planning for future years. Cllr Tyrrell said: “Hopefully, with all the changes that are indicated, it will give us some more flexibility at least in the future as to how we use the grant that comes in because some of the ring-fencing has moved but we still have all the same responsibilities that we’ve always had to keep adult and children’s population safe and secure.

“The vast majority of our budget goes into those areas of work. Despite all that, we are managing to make some investments, moving money from one area to another to ease the situation and improve the situation in some areas.

“So we are looking at putting some more funding into that ever-increasing demand for education and healthcare plans, we are looking to put investment into the social care area where assistive technology is certainly helpful in saving money but at the same time we have to ensure that people can use it safely. Everybody is concerned that we don’t want to go too far down that road without making sure that is the case.

“We are putting more money into the whole issue of domestic violence. Overall, given the constraints we have, we are moving in the right direction and I will be very pleased to present the budget to full council.”