£8m cuts and 4.99% council tax rise approved

The council tax rise will add more than £51 a year to a Band A bill

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has approved a 4.99% tax rise, the biggest increase allowed without a referendum.

The raise forms part of the budget for the coming year, which also includes £8m of budget cuts and savings.

There will be a new £40 annual charge for garden waste bins, reductions in library opening hours and cuts in cultural grants.

The council tax increase equates to an extra £51.27 a year for a Band A property, or an extra £76.91 for a Band D home.

The tax rise includes a 2% social care precept and is expected to generate an extra £5.3m for the council in 2024/25.

Councillors were able to pass a balanced budget after the government agreed to grant the authority a £42.2m loan following a request for exceptional financial support (EFS), which also covers an overspend in the current year.

Council leader Jane Ashworth blamed the authority’s financial situation on "a decade or more of huge cuts" from central government and "poor decision making" by the previous Conservative administration.

Labour leader Jane Ashworth said the budget was about protecting services and stabilising the council's finances

But she insisted that the budget would protect services while setting the council "on the road to recovery."

Some of the EFS loan is to be invested in early intervention to reduce the number of children being taken into care – currently the council’s biggest rising cost.

Opposition Conservative councillors, who voted against the budget, accused Labour of introducing a "garden tax."

They also warned that the £42.2m loan could become a "millstone around the neck" of the council if not paid back quickly enough.

The authority will have to pay the money back through the sale of land and buildings over the coming years.

Stoke-on-Trent is one of 19 authorities in England to be granted EFS this year.

In addition to the 4.99% council tax rise increases to the police and fire tax precepts of 4.99% and 2.99% have already been approved.

It means the total council tax bill for a Band A household in Stoke-on-Trent in 2024/25 is now confirmed to be £1,319.06.

For Band D properties it will be £1,978.59.