2.99% Cambridge City Council tax rise approved as authority looks to plug £11m gap over five years
Households in Cambridge will pay around £6 more a year to Cambridge City Council from April.
The authority has approved a 2.99 per cent council tax increase, which will see average Band D households pay £218.85 a year.
Cllr Anna Smith (Lab, Coleridge), leader of the city council, said the authority’s budget focused on “delivering the key priorities” of tackling inequality, addressing climate and biodiversity issues, addressing housing and supporting people who are homeless.
However, she said the city council needed to make around £11million of savings over the next five years, and would therefore “have to make some very difficult decisions”.
Cllr Smith said: “[This budget] is not about flashy new initiatives to win votes, it is about doing the right things for our city.”
The budget included cuts such as cancelling the annual free music festival, the Big Weekend, as well as fully closing or partially closing some public toilets.
It also included investment to meet increased energy costs at the city’s swimming pools, community centres and civic buildings, such as the Guildhall.
The council is also planning to spend £165,000 to “overhaul” the King’s Hedges play area, and to spend £209,000 on creating a new neighbourhood hub in Cherry Hinton.
The Liberal Democrat group said they welcomed that some changes had been made to the budget from what had originally been proposed by the administration, but were concerned by the full or partial closure of seven public toilets in the city, and the cancellation of the Big Weekend.
Cllr Katie Porrer (Lib Dem, Markett), said she would like to see the plans to close the public toilets put on hold for an equalities audit to take place on the potential impact.
Group leader Cllr Tim Bick (Lib Dem, Market) said the council should “avoid knee-jerk cutbacks” and could help avoid cuts by “speeding up the long running transformation process”.
Cllr Rosy Moore (Lab, Coleridge), executive councillor for environment, climate change and biodiversity, said it was a “difficult decision” to lose public toilets, but said: “People want them to be clean and well maintained.
“The toilets suffer from high levels of vandalism and need high levels of investment. From these savings we can focus our efforts in the 15 blocks of toilets that we are keeping open.”
Cllr Alex Collis (Lab, King’s Hedges), executive councillor for open spaces, food justice and community development, said none of the decisions was “knee jerk”, arguing they were “pragmatic decisions about getting the most out of limited funding”.
Cllr Mike Davey (Lab, Petersfield), the executive councillor for finance, resources and transformation, said the transformation programme was “on track”.
He said the process “may not be going as quickly as we would like”, but said the decisions on savings had to be made in a “sensible manner”.
The Green and Independent group also put forward some changes to the budget, asking for £60,000 to be reallocated to pay for more staff for the central market team, and asked the administration to consider some organisational changes, such as moving to all out elections once every four years.
The Liberal Democrat and the Green and Independent amendments did not receive enough support to be accepted. But a majority of the Labour-run council backed the main budget.
2023-24 city council tax breakdown by band:
- Band A £145.90
- Band B £170.22
- Band C £194.53
- Band D £218.85
- Band E £267.48
- Band F £316.12
- Band G £364.75
- Band H £437.70
The full council tax bill for Cambridge residents also includes payments to the county council, police, fire authority and Combined Authority.
