Our website uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.
For more information please view our Cookies policy.
The council’s budget for 2025/26 was approved by councillors at a meeting on Thursday 27 February 2025, following a public consultation in November and December 2024.
As well as additional investment set out in the proposals, which can be found below on this page, an amendment to the budget was carried by councillors. The amendment will see a proposed increase for sport pitches fees capped at three per cent, as part of the council’s commitment to sports facilities in the borough.
There are three levels of local government in Basingstoke and Deane. This includes services provided by Hampshire County Council, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and parish and town councils. The video below explains the difference between each council.
We provide services that residents use every day, such as recycling and waste collections, keeping our streets and open spaces clean, community safety patrols and more.
As a result of carefully managing our finances and an established commercial property and cash investment portfolio, which raises vital income to pay for our services, we are in a position that few other councils are in.
This means that we are able to invest more money into our key front line services at a time when many other councils are having to cut their services. It also allows us to support the delivery of key strategic projects such as the revitalisation of the town centre, the renewal of the leisure park and driving forward the delivery of new homes on Manydown.
a place where people can have pride in their communities and the borough
a borough where we protect, restore, reconnect and enhance our natural environment
a council that delivers high-quality services for our residents.
Every year we are required by law to set a budget, which shows how we plan to pay for our services for the following year and beyond to understand and prepare for the financial challenges we will face in future years.
We continue to face one of the most challenging financial periods in history for local government, with a backdrop of rising costs, no certainty about the funding from government and high levels of inflation. Although we have managed our finances well and are able to deliver more services and activities than most councils, we have a responsibility to spend every penny of our taxpayers money well.
An overview of council funding
There are three main sources of money that we have access to – revenue budget, capital budget and reserves. You can find out more about how we use these budgets below and by watching this animation.
Our revenue budget is the funding that we have to deliver our services and we raise this income in a number of ways including the borough’s share of your annual council tax bill, business rates and fees and charges for additional services.
Unlike many other councils we have a strong commercial property and cash investments portfolio. The income we get from property we own is double the amount we get from council tax. For a closer look on how we raise income, please watch this animation.
Here is a breakdown on how we spent our revenue budget last year:
Capital funding is used to improve facilities, undertake large scale projects, investments and purchase property, which will provide income to help pay for our services.
We also have to hold funds to help with potential issues that could impact our ability to receive the income that we expect or have to incur additional expenditure. These are called reserves, with some of this money allocated for specific purposes. Reserves cannot be used to fund ongoing spending and are finite. The reserves we currently hold are equivalent to the money we spend on our services for six months.
Key budget investments for 2025 to 2026
Focusing on the priorities of our residents, businesses and partners following feedback, our budget for 2025/2026 builds on significant additional investment in our services from the 2024/2025 budget.
This includes:
Maintaining significant extra funding introduced last year in our front line services. This included an additional £750,000 to keep the borough’s streets and open spaces clean and well-maintained and an extra £180,000 to improve play areas.
Funding for a new extreme sports event in the summer to boost activities on offer for young people.
Re-opening the public toilets in War Memorial Park all week for people visiting the park.
Introducing free overnight parking between 7pm and 8am in council-owned short stay car parks in the Top of the Town as part of our work to improve the area and boost the night time economy.
Funding to support the council’s work to tackle the borough’s climate and ecological emergencies. This includes the roll-out of food waste collections, continuing the work of the council’s Green Team, which supports residents to become more sustainable, and providing more electric vehicle chargers. Leading by example, plans also include exploring energy efficiency improvements for council-owned buildings and to boost the borough’s biodiversity, additional funding is also proposed to help maintain the borough’s trees.
Continuing our additional funding to provide housing advice for residents looking for a home.
Additional money to provide more one-to-one support for residents struggling with their finances by helping them to address issues such as debt. Working with partners, this will form part of a wider action plan currently being developed to tackle poverty in the borough.
To help fund these services, there will be an average 10p per week council tax increase, bringing the borough’s part of the council tax to £146.42 a year for the average household. This is still likely to make Basingstoke and Deane one of the lowest districts in Hampshire, and most of the country, for Council Tax.
Alongside this, we have carried out a detailed review of the charges for additional services we provide in line with the fees charged by other local councils and providers. As part of the budget, these charges will increase by an average of three per cent, with some charges increasing by more than this to bring fees in line with the cost to deliver these services. These charges are aimed at minimising the burden on tax payers who do not use these additional services.
