Council sets budget

At a Full Council Meeting on Wednesday 21 February 2024, North Warwickshire Borough Council (NWBC) approved its Budget for 2024/25.

The Budget for 2024/25 aims to deliver a sustainable financial position, whilst improving facilities, protecting excellent services for the future, and listening to what residents have said is important to them.

Residents have been consulted with extensively and the results have provided valuable information to assist in setting the Council’s budget and will also be used to shape the new Corporate Plan. The Council was pleased to see that overall satisfaction levels remain high and significantly above the national average, with particularly positive feedback on North Warwickshire as a place to live and for how North Warwickshire Borough Council runs things.

The vast majority of NWBC residents are satisfied with their local area as a place to live (88%). This is substantially higher than the national average of 75%. Over three-quarters (76%) of residents express satisfaction with the way the council runs things, which is 20 percentage points above the national average.

At the meeting, the Council committed to a major new project to replace the leisure centres in Atherstone and Polesworth. There will also be further investment in other leisure facilities, such as £100,000 for another pump track in Dordon in addition to the one opened in Ansley Common last year, together with £7,000 to assess the improvements needed to changing facilities at Council owned recreation grounds.

Communities in every Ward in the Borough will be able to benefit with funding for projects to improve life for residents as part of a £255,000 Community Grants scheme.

The cleanliness and appearance of our towns and villages will benefit from £125,000 extra spending, with additional work to enforce the new dog fouling regulations and a fund of £100,000 will be made available to support the ‘High Street’ in our main retail areas.

The Council has also allocated £15,000 to work on the items residents said in the survey were the most important, including feeling safe in the Borough after dark.

At the meeting councillors agreed to increase Council Tax for all households equivalent to an increase of 2.99%, which is necessary given that the Government’s funding for the Council assumes this level of increase.

For a Band D Council Tax this is an increase of £6.84 per year for NWBC services, which is approximately 13p a week.

Leader of the Council, Cllr David Wright said, “I am extremely pleased to announce a major overhaul of our leisure facilities with our commitment to provide brand new centres at Polesworth and Atherstone, together with enhanced facilities in Dordon and elsewhere in the Borough. The Borough Council has worked hard to limit the financial impact on households, being mindful of the current cost-of-living pressures which we hope are now starting to ease. However, we must also consider the need to provide ongoing funding for our services, so we can continue to deliver the services our residents need and expect. Feedback from our recent resident’s survey has highlighted what is important to our residents such as leisure facilities, street cleaning and being safe at night and we have set our budget according to this. I believe we have set out a clear plan to continue to improve the services we provide for our residents, creating opportunities, enhancing the facilities within the Borough and improving the appearance of our villages and towns in ways that are financially sustainable and provides good value for money.”

ENDS

All Council tax charges A-H will be on the Councils website soon.

You can view the agenda for the Full Council meeting and watch the YouTube recording.

You can view the results of the residents’ survey