Gravesham Borough Council has set a balanced budget for the coming year, despite continued external pressures in areas such as providing temporary accommodation for families at risk of homelessness.
The budget for 2025/26 was approved unanimously at a meeting of the full council last night (Tuesday) and contains pledges to continue to build affordable homes for local people, push on with projects to ensure the borough has high quality, accessible leisure centres, and a continued focus on improving the attractiveness of, and pride in, the borough.
It reflects the challenging financial position the council finds itself in, with a continued focus on working to maintain those services valued by the local community, while recognising that there will be some difficult decisions to take to ensure its spending plans are covered by available funding.
Presenting the budget, Cllr John Burden, Leader of Gravesham Borough Council, said: “It is no secret that local authorities across the country are facing significant financial challenges, leaving some in the unenviable position of serving notice that they are only able to continue to provide services they are legally obliged to.
“It is only thanks to years of prudent financial management that this council, which faces many of those same challenges, is able to present a balanced budget this year, although we have had to draw on our reserves to do so.
“Members and officers have worked hard over the last nine years to find more than £9 million pounds worth of savings and additional revenue to keep the council on an even keel and ensure we continue to deliver the services our community values.
“I make no secret of the fact that more needs to be found, and we must all be prepared to face some very difficult choices in future.”
Cllr Burden emphasised that many of the most significant challenges Gravesham and other local councils faced came from areas outside of their direct control, highlighting the cost of in recent years of providing temporary accommodation for local families at risk of homelessness.
He said: “For most of the past 18 months to two years, we have had more than 200 families in temporary accommodation, often costly nightly paid rooms in B&Bs and hotels.
“Those are record levels of need from genuinely local people who face homelessness from the ongoing effects of the cost-of-living crisis, which still continues to bite so many.”
He explained that the council had found groundbreaking ways to bring down the cost of temporary accommodation, but more needed to be done.
He said: “As well as making more of our own council houses available, working with local housing associations, and buying properties that have come on to the market locally to move people in to, we created our own social lettings agency, GBC Lettings.
“That organisation is working with local landlords to make it easy for them to bring property into use and help us to find permanent homes for those in temporary accommodation.
“The agency has been an unqualified success, attracted national attention, and a number of other local councils are now calling on our experience to help them launch similar ventures in their own areas.
“The long-term solution is to continue our work to build new, affordable homes for local people, and this budget contains the commitment to do just that.
“That’s just one way we have thought creatively about the challenges we face to bring us to the point where we are able to set a balanced budget when others are struggling to do so. There are many other examples.”
The budget sees a 2.99% increase in council tax in Gravesham.
Those living in a band D property in the borough will pay a total of £2,294.16 this year.
Of that, Gravesham will receive £237.96, compared to £231.03 last year, a rise of £6.93 – an increase of less than 14p a week.
More than half the homes in Gravesham fall within bands A-C and the annual council tax increase for them will be less.
Cllr Burden added: “Nobody likes paying taxes, but we rely on council tax to pay for the vast majority of the services we provide.
“We collect it on behalf of ourselves, Kent County Council, Kent Police and Crime Commissioner and Kent Fire and Rescue and pass on their share to them.
“For every £1 a Gravesham resident pays in council tax, we get 10p; Kent County Council gets 74p; the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner gets 12p; and Kent Fire and Rescue Service gets 4p.
“It’s a relatively small amount of money that we have to make go a long way, which I am sure the vast majority of our residents understand.”
Help is available for anyone struggling to pay their council tax.
Visit our council tax page or call 01474 337000 for more information.