Bath & North East Somerset Council has set out how it’s planning to spend its £151.7 million budget for 2025/2026, with the proposals being considered by councillors.
The latest budget would see extended park and ride hours in the district, cleaner and greener streets, more homes being built and further investment in care for adults and children to meet rising demand.
A report, which will be presented to the local authority’s Cabinet on 13th February, contains detailed proposals for a balanced budget for the council’s day-to-day spending for 2025/26.
The report also sets out investment plans over the next five years to improve Bath and North East Somerset’s infrastructure, including more than £70 million for house building as well as investment in active travel and transport improvements.
There is also provision to address the rising costs of children’s services, including placements for children and young people with special needs and Home to School Transport.
Other proposals within the budget include:
- £125,000 to trial extended hours for the park and ride service
- A £281,000 increase in Clean and Green Funding for rapid response to weeds, graffiti, and litter.
- £251,000 to improve customer contact by replacing outdated telephony and contact centre systems
- An increase of £87,000 in the School Streets programme to create three School Streets in 2025-26.
- £50,000 for extra support to subsidised bus services
Councillor Mark Elliott, cabinet member for resources, said: “We have again faced a challenging budget process.
“However, I am pleased again to present a balanced budget which demonstrates prudent management of our finances despite increasing demands and costs across the board, but particularly in our adult and children’s services.
“Our focus always has to be on meeting the needs of our most vulnerable and we are putting more than £5 million additional funding in the budget to meet pressures on care packages for adults.
“We are also addressing pressures on Home to School transport and want to invest £350,000 on more of our own drivers and vehicles.
“We also want to improve support for young people with £50,000 to trial a youth club in Bath.
“Making our streets cleaner and greener remains a priority for residents so we are investing in additional demand-led rapid response crews.
“We also need to modernise our customer contact technology to make it more joined-up for residents whichever way they choose to get in touch with our services.
“Making sure we deliver more housing is also vital for our area and £73.4m has been allocated over the next five years for Aequus, the council’s property company, to buy sites and deliver new homes.”
The budget report recommends an increase in general Council Tax by 2.99% in 2025/26, which equates to an increase of £51.92 per Band D property.
Additionally, the Adult Social Care Precept is proposed to increase by 2%, an additional £34.72 per Band D property.
This results in a total proposed Band D Council Tax for Bath and North East Somerset Council next year of £1,823.06, an overall increase of 4.99% or £86.64 per Band D property.
Councillor Elliott added: “I believe Bath and North East Somerset Council provides excellent value for money.
“We are not seeing the extraordinary percentage rises in council tax that some councils are having to make around the country, and we compare very favourably to our neighbours.
“Even after this rise we expect we will still have the fourth lowest unitary authority council tax in the South West, well below the South West average.”
Additional budget proposals which will also be considered by councillors include investments to address the climate emergency with a £4 million Decarbonisation Programme to remove gas as a heating fuel from the corporate estate, and £9.96 million for neighbourhood services vehicles and fleet decarbonisation.
The budget proposals for 2025 to 2026 will be considered by cabinet on 13th February and Full Council on 25th February.
