Mid Sussex District Council will have to take £353,000 from its reserves to balance its budget

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Mid Sussex District Council will have to take £353,000 from its reserves to balance its budget for 2025/26.

The news was shared during a meeting of the cabinet on Monday (February 3) and will be put to the full council on February 26 for final approval.

The budget also includes a proposed council tax increase of 2.95%, which would take the council’s portion of the average Band D bill to around £195.

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The proposed net revenue budget – day-to-day costs – sits at £23.17m.

Leader Robert Eggleston said it was a ‘fair and balanced budget which delivers for our community, safeguards our finances and positions us well for the future’.

And CEO Kathryn Hall added: “Despite the difficulty, there is a lot to be positive about.”

She said the budget contained a lot of good news including a ‘very considerable’ capital programme of £34.6m ‘which recognises investment over the next few years in much-loved council assets’.

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The programme includes £4m for parks investment, £8m for temporary housing, and nearly £1m for the next phase of the Burgess Hill Place and Connectivity Programme.

Two parks have been added to the improvements list – St John’s, in Burgess Hill, and London Road, Hassocks, will benefit from £563,000 and £866,000 respectively, with all the money coming from S106 developer contributions.

The meeting was told that there had been some ‘difficult decisions’ when it came to fees and charges.

These included increasing the cost of the garden waste service by £12.50 per year, taking it from £85 to £97.50. This will add £327,000 to the council’s coffers.

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A 10p rise on charges across all car parks and time bands will bring in another £115,000.

In November/December, the council will start its roll-out of a food waste collection. This has come with ‘significant’ costs to pay for some 180,000 in-house caddies and bins, seven new vehicles to collect the food waste, new staff, and a new depot, which is expected to cost around £1.4m.

While the government has funded some of the capital costs, nothing is yet clear about covering the day-to-day costs of running the service.

Looking ahead, budget gaps of more than £1.1m have been forecast for the years up to and including 2028/29.

By then, though, the local government rearrangement which is currently being explored should have been put in place, leaving a very different playing field.

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