Bankrupt Woking Borough Council consults on cutting services

A council which has halted spending due to unsustainable debts has asked locals what services it should cut and what they would be willing to pay more for.

Last month, Woking Borough Council issued a Section 114 notice to halt all non-essential spending as its debts were forecast to hit £2.6bn.

The council said it was undergoing a "full restructure" to become smaller and cheaper.

The consultation is part of the council's plan to cut costs.

The council has said it wants to convince the government to bail out its £2.6bn forecast debt and £1.2bn deficit.

In a survey the authority asked residents to rate their top three most-valued services including parks, toilets, sports pitches and swimming pools, street cleaning and community spaces.

The consultation then asked which services people would be prepared to pay more for, with residents given the option of leisure centres, swimming pools, community centres, day care centre services, community meals, the alarm service, theatres, car parking or garden waste collections.

The final question asked which services the council should consider reducing or stopping funding altogether.

Residents are also being asked how they think the council should tackle its budget shortfall.

The consultation runs until 6 August.

The council said "difficult decisions" were necessarily to bridge an £11m budget shortfall in 2024-25 after the authority borrowed hundreds of millions of pounds between 2016 and 2019.

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