£1.86bn budget to fund vital services
Last week, we reported on the West Sussex County Council meeting where the budget was set for 2023/24. Here, county council leader Paul Marshall provides an update on the council’s budget...
I know that these are tough times for everyone and fully recognise the strain that household budgets are under in West Sussex, with soaring inflation and big rises in the cost of living.
These tough times are also impacting the county council. We must continue to look after the young, the old and the vulnerable to ensure that West Sussex remains a great place to live and work, with a strong and vibrant economy.
Our adults’ and children’s services are particularly under pressure, as we need to fund support for people with increasingly complex needs.
In February our full council met and approved our annual budget for 2023-24. They agreed to spend a total of £1.86billion to deliver day-to-day services to a growing population of 882,676 residents and 37,400 businesses across our county.
The budget will allows us to continue to deliver our Council Plan priorities and support those most in need, whilst investing in services used by all who live, work, volunteer and visit our county.
To fund our budget for next year, we need to increase the county council’s element of council tax by 2.99 per cent, plus an additional two per cent for adult social care, making a total increase of 4.99 per cent. This will see an increase for an average Band D property of £77.67 per year, or about £1.50 per week. The proposed increase enables us to balance our budget and protect vital services.
What benefits will residents see for their council tax? In addition to funding essential services, over the next five-years we plan to invest £110million on highway maintenance and local transport improvements, plus £86million on major road schemes.
There will be £109million to provide additional school places, including £53.5million to build a new ultra-low-carbon secondary school in Burgess Hill.
We will spend £32million to deliver more places for children with special educational needs and invest a further £6.85million to improve our children’s homes.
We will spend £18.5million to make our buildings more environmentally friendly by reducing our carbon emissions, and £49million on solar power and battery storage renewable energy schemes.
Some £25million will be allocated to improve public spaces and provide better, safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists making it easier and more attractive to visit our town centres and £13million in ‘gigabit’ broadband technology to bring high speed connectivity to 99 per cent of the county’s residents and businesses.
This is just a small selection of some of the many areas where money will be invested and the impacts seen.
Also an additional £4.5million was approved to go towards floodprevention and pothole repairs following this winter’s icy spells and torrential rainfall – the worst possible combination for our roads – which our highways teams are working extremely hard to rectify.
As I said earlier, this is a budget that supports those most in need whilst continuing to invest for the future.
I truly appreciate the pressures that residents are under and would encourage anyone struggling to pay their council tax to contact their local district or borough council to see if they are eligible for a discount or exemption.
Further advice about local and national support available for people struggling with the rising cost of living can be found on our website and, in addition, we have added £400,000 council tax relief to complement the government scheme which builds on the £6million we have already released to help those facing economic challenges.