At a time when many councils are struggling to stay solvent and a number have declared bankruptcy, we are very pleased to say that the Residents Alliance group which runs the council has been able to set a balanced budget for 2024/25 without cuts to services and has been able to keep 2 hour free parking in Ellice Road car park.
The budget was agreed at a council meeting on Thursday. The increase in Council Tax for 2024/25 is 2.99%. It means a rise of £7.11 per year for a Band D property – or 14p per week. The increases for other fees and charges are generally around 5% with the aim of ensuring the charge for a service more closely reflects the cost of providing it.
Balancing the budget has been one of the hardest issues OLRG Councillors have faced since forming the administration in May 2021. At that time, we inherited a council that was threatened with bankruptcy and a £920,000 annual hole in the budget was discovered due to a pension costs error.
Since then, the councillors have worked hard to get the finances back on track and were very pleased to receive a letter from the Government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities praising the council’s successful efforts. The letter from DLUHC’s head of local government finance stewardship says:
“The department recognises and commends the council’s efforts to grip and manage its budget pressures, and the successful steps taken to deliver the transformation and savings programme in 2022-23 and in 2023-24.”
We were also pleased to see that latest figures show that Tandridge District Council is the number two council in Surrey for recycling performance and number eleven in the whole of England.
