The council’s budget for 2026/27 was approved by councillors at a meeting on Thursday 26 February, following a public consultation in November and December 2024. More information on the key measures as part of the budget can be found on this page.
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. This video explains the difference between each council.
Every day, we provide essential services for communities across the borough, including recycling and waste collections, keeping our streets, parks and open spaces clean and well maintained, community safety patrols and supporting those who need extra help.
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.
At a time when many other councils are faced with cutting back on services, we are able to invest more money into our key frontline services that residents value. It also allows us to work with partners on ambitious projects for the future of our borough, from the revitalisation of the town centre and renewal of the leisure park to driving forward the delivery of new communities at Manydown.
The Council Plan sets out the key priorities and actions for the council and focuses on three core priorities:
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 legally required 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 future financial challenges we will face.
We continue to face challenges, with a backdrop of rising costs, uncertainty around funding from government and 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 as we plan for the future.
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.
Our 2026 to 2027 budget
Focusing on the priorities of our residents, businesses and partners following feedback, our budget for 2026/2027 build on significant additional investment in our services from the 2024/2025 and 2025/26 budgets to continue this work.
Measures include:
Maintaining significant extra funding introduced in 2024/25 and 2025/26 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.
Investing an additional £250,000 per year in our work to keep the borough streets, parks and open spaces clean and well maintained. This includes a dedicated jet washing service, following successful projects in the town centre and other areas.
Additional investment in our planning service to support the co-ordinated delivery and collection of funding for vital infrastructure and to support ongoing work to investigate breaches of planning permissions and conditions.
Funding to develop the council’s use of technology to enable faster response times, as part of our work to improve customers’ experience of accessing services.
A number of amendments to the budget were approved by councillors. This included £40,000 per year to buy up to 10 speed indicator devices to support targeted enforcement for speeding across the borough and a £200,000 local Business Rates Hardship Fund for the next year. This will support pubs and small businesses facing business rates increases and small businesses and retailers not eligible for national support packages.
The other amendment to the budget that was approved by councillors will see the reintroduction of some one-hour free parking at the Top of the Town for one year.
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 £151.42 a year for the average household. This is likely to make Basingstoke and Deane one of the lowest districts in Hampshire, and most of the country, for council tax.
Charges for additional services the council provides, such as car parking, will also increase by an average of three per cent to reflect the rising costs to deliver these services.
Alongside the revenue budget, our capital budget includes over £21 million of investment for projects to boost the borough’s communities. This includes driving forward our plans for a modern new water and leisure complex to replace the Aquadrome and other new attractions at the leisure park, protect vital homelessness facilities, improve community centres and invest in sports facilities across the borough.
