Guildford Liberal Democrats Budget Statement

Thanks to sound financial management, Liberal Democrats have prioritised public services, investment in affordable housing, and cushioning the cost of living crisis in this year's Guildford Borough Council budget.

Liberal Democrats running Guildford Borough Council (in coalition with R4GV) have made their priorities clear in this year's council budget, which was passed by full council on the evening of 8th February.

Thanks to our responsible financial management, we are proud to have been able to both protect public services and cushion the cost of living crisis for local people.

In the past year, inflation has reached highs of almost 15%, hitting the council's finances hard, at the same time as the Conservative government has cut our funding. But, despite this, Guildford's share of council tax will be going up by just 3%. Rents for council housing tenants will be going up by just 5% and rents for garages by just 3%.

The easiest way to have balanced our books would have been on the back of local people and businesses, with inflation-busting and maximum increases to charges and fees across the board, or to have made knee-jerk cuts to public services to save money. But we made a deliberate choice not to do so.

Instead, we have found other ways to balance our books. Instead of cutting public services, we've made use of our reserves. Instead of hiking charges and fees, we're making back-office savings through our bold collaboration with Waverley Borough Council, which is already saving us hundreds of thousands a year from the merger of senior management.

Thanks to these decisions, we will continue to provide excellent value for money for local people and be able to continue to fund public services which are needed more than ever during a cost of living crisis.

We are also planning ahead for the future by continuing with much-needed investment in council housing and in regenerating our town.

Our budget includes a £20 million investment in our council houses to improve energy efficiency (cutting costs for our tenants) and ensure our homes are safe and healthy to live in.

We are continuing with our plans to build hundreds of new affordable homes through regeneration projects like Weyside Urban Village and Guildford Park Road, and we are getting ready to adopt an ambitious action plan to tackle climate change.

All of these decisions demonstrate our priorities as Liberal Democrats. We believe in running an efficient, responsibly-managed council that delivers value for money in order to fund the public services, affordable housing and action on climate change which will underpin a greener, fairer and thriving future for Guildford and our villages.

And, as we head into this May's local elections, we look forward to setting out our plans for the more ambitious action we would like to take once freed from the constraints of coalition with a party which does not share, and often opposes, our priorities for the people of our borough.