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Council approves ambitious budget for 2025/26

Gloucestershire County Council has approved its ambitious £665 million budget for 2025/26.

At a meeting of council on Wednesday, February 19, the budget was approved by members.

The council is in a good financial position meaning it is able to continue support for existing services as well as make significant investments across the county.

The spending plans for 2025/26 will see spending rise by more than £48.2 million on 2024/25 levels, to over £665 million.

The budget includes significant investment into the council’s priority areas of Highways, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), Adult Services, Infrastructure, and the Environment.

  • An ongoing £10 million towards delivering on the council’s £100 million four-year commitment to go on improving Gloucestershire roads, with a greater focus in 2025/26 on tackling rural roads.
  • A total £22.2 million towards increasing capacity and improving school buildings and facilities of schools across the county, including £12.8 million towards a new 200 place special school.
  • Young people with SEND and their families will be supported with an extra £2.1 million.
  • £7.5 million towards the future construction of three new adult care homes is being set aside in 2025/26, with further investment planned in future years.
  • Household Waste Recycling Centres in the county will see improvements with a £1.3 million injection.

The budget will raise £20.3 million to help fund services through a council tax increase of 2.99 per cent. It would also see £7.9 million raised specifically to support work with the most vulnerable adults in the county through a further 2 per cent increase in the adult social care precept.

Despite this increase the council still expects to have one of the lowest council tax levels of any county council. Based on a band D property, residents would pay an additional £6.65 each month.

The council continues to challenge itself to work more effectively and as a result has identified £24.5 million in savings, additional income and efficiencies for next year.

A number of amendments to the budget were proposed, with those below being agreed and therefore adopted as part of the council’s spending plans for 2025/26.

The approved one-off budget amendments were as follows:

  • £100,000 to support the expansion of the successful waterscapes natural flood management project, through a grant to Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (Green)
  • £60,000 as funding to the eight Community Libraries (£7,500 per library) towards repair, maintenance and energy efficiency upgrades in their buildings e.g. LED lighting (Green)
  • £50,000 to increase the council’s budgeted contribution to the Greener Gloucestershire Climate Action Fund, which has just opened to applications from community climate projects that promote behaviour change, doubling the money that can be funded in this round (Green)
  • £50,000 to set up one or two Libraries of Things within Gloucestershire, following the successful example of Charlton Kings Library (Green)
  • £50,000 to extend the term of the popular free bus pass initiative for veterans (Green)
  • £60,000 to engage a part-time coordinator to manage the master composter volunteers and promote community composting initiatives (Green)
  • £50,000 to support a feasibility study considering the implementation of community car clubs in the county, following the successful rollout across Oxfordshire (Green)
  • £500,000 towards a flood alleviation fund (Conservative)
  • £430,000 towards targeted youth services (Conservative)