Plans to axe public toilets and playing fields maintenance in South Gloucestershire Council budget

Cost-cutting plans to axe the upkeep of public toilets and playing fields, increase household garden waste collection fees by 17 per cent and hike council tax by more than the current maximum have been announced by South Gloucestershire Council. The local authority has launched a public consultation into its annual budget proposals amid the prospect of a £16million black hole in four years.

The council has warned it will mean “pain for local people” and future cuts to services while raising the amount of money it charges to balance the books. The consultation documents said: “The council has a fundamental budget problem – our costs are increasing at a far greater rate than our income.

“And there are uncertainties around some funding streams. While the authority is currently in a relatively good position financially, thanks to having planned ahead with changes to the way it works, and saving more than £100million since 2010, the next two years’ budgets can be balanced by delivering existing savings plans and by spending the council’s reserves.”

The council said it had prioritised changes that did not impact services for residents and that cuts could be minimised in the short term but that this was only because of difficult decisions taken early on previously and that this approach must continue to avoid serious future cost pressures. Among the immediate proposals is increasing garden waste collection charges from £60 to £70 – about 17 per cent – even these were doubled from £30 just last February with a pledge to put them up only by the rate of inflation in forthcoming years.

The authority said this would bring it into line with neighbouring councils to cover the service’s “escalating costs”. It is also asking residents what they think about a possible rise in council tax above the current five per cent cap – including two per cent ringfenced for social care – that is allowed without a local referendum “should legislation be changed to allow higher increases”.

Each percentage charged gives the council an extra £1.9million, and changes to council tax would raise by far the most money of any of its 2025/26 budget proposals. The council will also consider cutting some services currently provided by or with other bodies.

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It said it would talk to town and parish councils and the voluntary sector because it was “likely to have to withdraw funding from delivering discretionary services like maintenance of local facilities such as public conveniences, playing fields and other open spaces”. The authority said: “However, we recognise the community and local value of these services and therefore over the next year we will open discussions with town and parish councils and voluntary and community sector organisations to understand this impact and (where possible) find the best, most efficient way of delivering services going forwards.

“This will include understanding residents’ priorities and how services could be paid for and provided. For some areas, it may make sense for council teams to continue to complete some of these maintenance tasks.

“Other towns and villages already have individuals or teams – often supported by community groups – who do a fantastic job making sure your places are looking fantastic. Until the last few years, we have kept charges for discretionary services much lower than in other parts of the country – and far below the costs of delivering that support.

“And it has been an anomaly for people to not have to pay to use public car parks in South Gloucestershire. However, as our finances have become more constrained, it has felt unfair to continue to subsidise the cost of services like collecting grass cuttings when not everyone has a garden, and to not charge people for parking to allow us to cover the cost of providing and maintaining car parks.

“We have therefore changed our approach to stop subsidising these services so we can prioritise funding towards essential support like social care for the vulnerable.” Other money-saving measures include reducing what it spends internally and externally to deliver services, considering whether to sell or rent out property it owns and using technology to interact with residents and in social care.

The authority said: “Given the scale of the potential gap between the council’s expected income and the cost of delivering services, however, it is expected that it will need to generate more income, as well as to look at services it is able to cut completely. Because the financial pressures faced are not immediate, it is not proposing any further cuts to the services delivered directly by the council, through this consultation process.

“However, given the uncertainties ahead, it thinks it will need to make some cuts over the coming months and years.” Council leader Cllr Maggie Tyrrell (Liberal Democrat, Thornbury) said: “Over recent years, we’ve needed to spend more and more providing direct support to the most vulnerable people in our society.

“This year, we expect to spend £134.3million, or 44 per cent of our net budget, on care for older people, disabled people and people with learning disabilities, and a further £52.1million, or 17 per cent of our budget, on children’s social care, including safeguarding, fostering, children in care and to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. Unfortunately, as is the case for councils up and down the country, the rapidly increasing demand for our most expensive support, the rising costs of delivering services, and the year-on-year cuts to central government funding have put unsustainable pressure on our finances.

“The good news is that in South Gloucestershire, due to our robust forward-planning, we are in a much better financial position than most other local authorities. If we increase council tax by 4.99 per cent we can currently deliver a balanced budget for the next financial year.

“And we are confident that, as things stand currently, through following this same approach and by continuing to use our remaining financial reserves set aside for this purpose, as well as delivering the previous savings we have committed to, we can balance our income and outgoings again for the financial year 2026/27. However, the longer-term picture looks less certain.

“Even after delivering the £40million in savings we agreed as part of the budget signed off last year, our projections show that in four years’ time we will be almost £16million short just to stand still in terms of the services we provide. We want to be open and honest with you, there are no longer any ‘easy’ savings to be made.

“The difficult decisions we’re talking about will mean pain for local people, for our staff and for the partners we work with. We’ll need to look at charging for things that might once have been free, and to look at increasing the cost of some of the services we already charge for.

“And whilst we may be able to hold off doing so in the short-term, we will need to make cuts to some services. None of these are decisions we want to take, but we must face up to the financial reality.”

The consultation is open until January 8 and is here. Full council will make the final decisions in February.

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