Berkshire residents face fresh council tax rises

Residents in the borough of Windsor will face an increase of almost 5%

Residents in Windsor and Maidenhead will see their council tax bills increase by almost 5% next month.

The rise keeps the council in line with most other authorities apart from neighbouring Slough where bills are expected to increase by 8.5%.

Slough Borough Council is one of a number of cash-strapped local authorities that are being allowed to exceed the government's council tax cap of 5% for 2024-25.

Councillor Lynne Jones, who is in charge of Windsor and Maidenhead's finances, said: “Almost every council is putting council tax up by the maximum possibly allowed and we are no different.”

Councillor Lynne Jones said the council had taken tough but necessary decisions

Ms Jones said: “Unfortunately, much of our position is our own fault, not this administration but back over the last decade.

“If council tax had been raised in accordance with every other council, to say the average or comparable to other councils, we would have an extra £30m a year to spend on the community.”

Ms Jones explained that adult and children social care is a huge cost: “We are spending 77% of our net revenue expenditure on social care, whereas, back in 2011 it was only 54%, obviously that squeezes all our other services.”

She said: “We’ve had to have a very grown up budget and taken decisions we really don’t want to take to make sure that we are viable.

"We don’t want to issue a section 114, [which means bankruptcy] and our chief financial officer believes we can get out of this mess that we're in."

The government announced that Slough Borough Council is one of 19 cash-strapped English councils, that will be allowed to sell property and other assets to pay for services next year.