Worthing Borough Council approves council tax rise and balanced budget

The full council approved the revenue and capital budgets for 2025/26, at its meeting on Tuesday, February 25.

This included a council tax rise of 2.99 per cent and £2million in exceptional funding support (EFS) from the government, meeting a net budget requirement of £17,815,000.

The council applied to the government for EFS in December to help balance a £1.84million budget shortfall, which was approved by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government on Thursday, February 20.

The joint service budget that Worthing Borough runs with Adur District Council, saw £1.34million in cuts and savings for Worthing’s contribution for 2025/26, with £712,126 of this coming from a reduction in temporary accommodation costs.

Leader of the council Sophie Cox (Lab, Castle) said housing and homelessness costs had increased to one third of the council’s budget this year, saying the last few years had brought ‘questions and uncertainty’ to the council but that she was ‘optimistic’ for the future.

“The cost of living crisis continues to hit our residents and services hard and inflationary pressures are still putting a strain on our council resources”, she said. “The pressures on finances have left us with difficult decisions to make. It cannot be ignored how significant the demand for housing and homelessness has become.

“Over the past two years we have worked with officers to streamline processes, eliminate inefficiencies, and ensure that the new financial strategy for the years ahead focuses on income generation and asset prioritisation.

“The capital program this year has been scaled down to reduce the risk of financial pressure, instead we have focused on a program that is achievable and deliverable.

“While the past two years have been challenging they have also started to build resilience. Reorganisation does bring questions and uncertainty, but it also provides us with a canvas for the future we can design together.”

Some councillors raised concerns that the council would not be able to balance next year’s budget, meaning it would have to issue a section 114 notice and effectively enter bankruptcy.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Cox said it was ‘absolutely not our intention to issue 114’, and that the government support was a ‘positive step’ and a ‘bridging mechanism’ to more stable future budgets.

She added the government would not be ‘wasting’ its time issuing support if it did not think the same way.

Opposition leader Kevin Jenkins (Con, Goring) said the administration had overseen a ‘dramatic decline’ in the town’s usable reserves, saying the budget was an ‘attack on hard working people’.

He said: “So here we are again, one year on and the same financial issues are still facing this council, so it’s right to ask, has there been an improvement in this council’s working financial position? In reality, today, they are telling residents that they must pay more for less.

“Montague Gardens, your pledge to build it out by 2024 – well we’re in 2025 and there’s not even a spade in the ground. Yet the cost has jumped from £2.4million to £2.7million to £3.1 million.

“A Big Listen campaign that seems to have withered and died and what was said has by and large fallen on deaf ears.

“You’ve gotten rid of the youth mayor, you’ve got rid of mayoral cadets, we no longer have a youth council – you wanted to bring more young people into this chamber, it hasn’t worked.

“So all this leaves this council going to the government cap in hand asking for a £2million handout for 2025/26.

“But it’s not just this year, they have already given notice that at this current time they are projecting that they will be asking for government support in 2026/27 to the tune of a further £2.3million.”

The Conservatives proposed a series of amendments to the budget, including keeping the council’s director for place post vacant for 12 months, removing a cabinet position, removing increases to the green bin collection and parking charges, and suspending pavement licence fees for 2025/26.

They said these changes, alongside removing some devolution work, would lead to a total of £14,445 extra put into the council’s reserves, but were rejected by the full council.

Cllr Jenkins also proposed a motion that £1.8million in funding earmarked for a 1.4km cycle path along George V Avenue be reduced to £300,000 for a short extension of an existing path, and use the remaining £1.5million for works on Worthing Pier.

The motion was passed with support from Labour, potentially seeing the earmarked community infrastructure funding (CIL) repurposed.

Worthing Community Independents (WCI) leader Carl Walker (Ind, Selden) said the administration was imposing a version of ‘local austerity’ with cuts to cultural services like Colonnade House, run by Adur and Worthing Trust.

Proposed cuts to funding for Colonnade House in the budget were asked to be removed by the WCI, and to improve the community participation tender to assist non-profits in Worthing, through two budget amendments.

The two WCI amendments received some support from other opposition members but were rejected by the full council.

The Green party leader Claire Hunt (Green, Goring) said after 14 years of Conservative government cuts to council funding, councils across the UK had been forced to cut non-core services ‘to the bone’.

“We had hoped a new Labour government would immediately invest in local government and introduce fairer funding to tackle homelessness and relieve the rising demand for temporary accommodation”, she said.

“And yet here we are, despite rigorous in-year spending controls as well as a huge organisational redesign and needing exceptional financial support, the letter from Jim McMahon makes it clear that even now, wishing to borrow is dependent on external assurance review.

“We appreciate the condition on the exceptional financial support that community and heritage assets will not be sold off.”

She said the Greens appreciated progress on the Sussex Bay project, cycle infrastructure, preservation of the pier, heat network delivery and the council’s introduction of electric fleet vehicles.

The Greens proposed an amendment for a design study for a ramp on Worthing seafront to increase access for people with disabilities and mobility issues, which was rejected by the full council.

Cllr Cox said the administration could not support any of the budget amendments as ‘hard choices’ had to be made to ‘make sure we have budget left to protect the most vulnerable’.

The budget passed with Labour and one Green member voting for, the Conservatives and some independents voting against, and two councillors abstaining.