Council delivers budget for new financial year
At a special meeting of the council last evening, Arun District Councillors voted for the proposed budget to take the council through the next financial year, 2025-2026.
This has proven to be another challenging budget to produce, given the continuing demands on local authorities and thanks were given to the Section 151 officer and his team for their hard work.
Members engaged in lively debate, providing challenge and scrutiny and the budget was approved by 29 votes to 17, with one abstention.
The Leader of the Council, Cllr Martin Lury delivered the budget speech and highlighted several areas to address.
Throughout the development of this budget, councillors have had the opportunity to scrutinise, ask questions and present counter proposals.
This budget has provided significant challenges reflecting the impacts on the finances of local government, and we at Arun District Council are not immune to that. We have worked tirelessly to maintain a steady budget and ensure once again that it does not include non-essential growth, cuts to services or redundancies.
The result of this is that we have reduced the council's budget deficit from £5.2million to £1.88million in just two years. The council will continue to face further financial issues beyond 2025/26, such as the government's Fair Funding Review, but the continuing delivery of our Financial Strategy means that we are well placed to address those challenges.
Cllr Lury also shared:
We have also implemented a policy of charging a Council Tax premium on second home, a move which will increase income by £350,000, as well as freeing up homes that often stand empty.
Turning to the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), we have had to make the difficult decision of rent and service charge increases of 2.7%, but members need to be aware that government-imposed rent freezes between 2016 and 2020 had a major impact on our income base and our HRA balance remains below our £2million target level.
The service charges de-pooling policy should generate significant income next year and a hardship fund will be set up to alleviate the pressure on those impacted the most.
In terms of our capital programme, this has been developed in a cautious fashion, with new schemes added mainly where we have taken advantage of government grants to fund the acquisition of new housing properties, managing to purchase properties at 50 to 60 per cent of their market value.
Furthermore, the refurbishment of The Alexandra Theatre in Bognor Regis and the enhancement of Littlehampton Seafront are projects currently underway which will further boost our tourist industry. We are aiming to restore confidence to our towns and in fact confidence in investors has clearly grown given the inward investment we have seen in the form of new hotels in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, investors who clearly see the potential in our sunny coastal resorts.
The council continues to work with stakeholders and partner organisations to provide quality leisure facilities across the district, as well as improving and enhancing local play areas and public toilet facilities. Our commitment to the environment remains a priority.
The budget also sets the Council Tax for Arun district residents. The Arun District Council proportion of annual Council Tax on an average Band D property, is £214.62 per annum, which works out at an extra £6.23 per annum, or just under 12 pence per week. It is important to note that our share is just a small part of the Council Tax collected by Arun District Council on behalf of West Sussex County Council, Sussex Police and town and parish councils.
The recording of the Special Council meeting and the papers for the meeting can be found on our website.