Rise to Somerset Council tax bills in new unitary budget

The new council will have a £38m budget gap to plug

Residents in Somerset will pay almost 5% extra a year in council tax to the new unitary council from April.

The budget for Somerset Council was voted through by the ruling Liberal Democrats on Wednesday, including a £78-a-year rise in the average Band D property bill.

On 1 April Somerset County Council is set to merge with four district councils.

They will be replaced by a single authority known as Somerset Council.

Those district authorities include Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West & Taunton and South Somerset.

Councillors elected in May 2022 have the responsibility for the transition to the new council in collaboration with the four district councils.

Somerset Council's first budget was voted through on Wednesday, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The average Band D property will see a 4.99% rise in the council tax bill going to that new authority - which will cover increasing costs in children's' and adults' social services.

The leader of the conservative opposition group, councillor David Fothergill, said he and his party could not support the budget due to the amount of reserves being eaten up.

"The use of £19.9m of reserves to balance the budget - you can't keep doing that. You have to build reserves.

"The monitoring officer says that failure to make tough reserves will lead to reserves being exhausted. If you keep pulling on reserves, you are going to go bankrupt," he told the council meeting.

In response, Mike Rigby replied "The closest this council has come to a Section 114 notice [where new expenditure is banned] was when he was leader of the council - we haven't forgotten their panic."

The council's budget also includes £258m in capital spending over the next 12 months.

It will fund the regeneration of Bridgwater and Glastonbury town centres through their respective town deal, the upgrading of the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil, delivering new cycling infrastructure on the Firepool site in Taunton and resurfacing the 'concrete carriageway' linking Wellington to the M5.