Council tax to rise with more money for roads

Essex County Council plans to increase its part of the council tax by 3.75% from April to help with rising costs and demand for its services.

The Conservative administration says its bill for services has increased by 6% compared to last year to £1.2bn. The council plans to make £43m worth of savings in 2025-26.

More money is budgeted for road maintenance and pothole repairs - £65m over the next year compared to the £25m that had been planned.

Chris Whitbread, cabinet member for finance, told the BBC: "We've put an extra £8m from the council tax into highways, which will be ongoing and we found an extra £10m worth of capital money to spend on highways."

Some of the extra money for road repairs is coming from central government.

The council has doubled its spending for 2024-25 on road maintenance to £78.5m after originally budgeting £39m for it last January.

Road conditions are the most important issue for two-thirds of residents according a survey by the council.

Whitbread, whose formal title is Chancellor of Essex, said the main financial pressures are social care and special educational needs (Send) where the authority has "been lobbying government to make additional funding available".

An extra £20m is forecast to be raised from fees and charges over the next year.

The council says most are increasing with inflation.

Some fees are seeing double-digit increases including notice of marriages and civil partnerships by 20% and official certificates for births, deaths, marriage and partnerships increasing by 13.6%.

Whitbread said "efficiencies" would help save millions of pounds, but he would not be drawn on job cuts.

"Whatever we do we haven't actually cut services as we continue to invest in the things that matter to people, like libraries," he said.

Lib Dem Mike Mackrory told the BBC "there is a concern whether there will be a shortfall in the rest of year" with the authority not increasing council tax by the maximum 4.99% it is allowed to.

Labour's Ivan Henderson said: "We are still seeing the aftermath of 14 years of government spending cuts on local government.

"I'm looking to see what the new government comes forward with in multi-year settlements and waiting to see the impact grants the government has made so far - such as £45m highways capital maintenance and nearly £18m for bus service improvement - will have in Essex".

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