Brighton and Hove City Council voted to put up council tax by 4.99 per cent this evening (Thursday 26 February) as members backed a budget totalling just over £1 billion for the coming financial year.
The 4.99 per cent includes 2 per cent to be ring-fenced for adult social care – the biggest single area of council spending.
When precepts from the Sussex police and crime commissioner and East Sussex Fire Authority are included, the average band D council tax bill from April will be £2,579.44 – or almost £215 a month.
This will be an increase of just over £10 a month – up from £2,455.79. The council charges the main amount, accounting for £2,180.04 of the total.
The cost of running day-today services in the coming year is expected to be about £680 million – or roughly £920 million when the capital programme of longer-term projects totalling £240 million is included.
About £113 million of the £240 million allocated for capital spending will go on housing.
The council’s “housing revenue account”, funded from tenants’ rents, will add a further £87 million, taking the total gross budget to £1.018 billion.
If the budget this year had a theme, it was about trying to make a dent in the housing problems facing the council and people living in Brighton and Hove – many in precarious circumstances.
About £210 million of the funding for the £1 billion budget will come from council tax, with the bulk coming from a variety of government grants, worth £495 million in total.
The government grants include almost £260 million for schools and just over £80 million for housing benefit. The council passes on almost all of this money, effectively distributing the money on behalf of the government.
Some council income also comes from the council’s share of business rates – about £60 million – as well as fees and charges totalling £125 million such as parking charges.
Unusually for a local authority, the council has a longstanding and successful commercial property portfolio which brings in more than £13 million a year. The housing revenue account, mostly made up of tenants’ rents, brings in £87 million.
The Greens and Conservatives put forward a series of modest amendments to the budget but Labour voted them down.
The council’s general fund, capital budget and housing revenue account budgets were all approved.
Quelle surprise for another year just below the trigger to force a vote, and 2% more than the inflation rate. I wonder how much the council have improved price-performance over the last year?
CPI is at 3%. So you would expect Council Tax to increase by that amount, just to stand still. As our population ages, there is an increasing demand for Adult Social Care, hence the additional 2%. We might not like it, but it is justifiable.
Pretty much all councils of every genre are doing the same. Justin explains the core justification very well, but I’m also in agreement with him, it’s never popular.
More money for no benefit to the majority of council tax payers!
The roads are crap and getting worse.
The street blighted by unchecked drug dealing, petty theft and shoplifting.
But ha – loads of dish for pet-projects.
…so you agree with the part of the budget that gives additional funding to the police to tackle the “unchecked drug dealing, petty theft and shoplifting”? You’ve kinda argued yourself, there.
They should have been doing that already. The extra cash will have NO effect.
The should have been doing that already. The extra cash will have NO effect.
Then you’re arguing that the police should be defunded if you think the extra cash will have no effect? I’m struggling to find the coherence in your arguments.
Pain for wealth generating workers and great news for Labour voting benefit scroungers.
To go towards the £7m+ that BHCC are peeing away on VG3. (Over and above the grant they received from Government)
Your listening Labour council ladies and gentlemen
We may as well throw this council tax rise directly down the drain and cut out the middleman for all the city and service improvement we will see as a result. The mismanagement and squandering of our money on vanity projects never stops. It’s time to demand a full independent audit of all council accounts and expenditure and make this available to every taxpayer in the city including a breakdown of every last penny of debt and how it will be repaid.
Are you aware that the CFO independently audits the budget as a matter of course? And is it also scrutinised cross-party?
A full independent audit takes place every year that takes several months to complete.
During that audit every local elector has the right to inspect the accounts and ask to see copies of financial data.
Every single payment the council makes over £250 is published on the council website each month.
The information is there, open and transparent.
No one likes tax rises, and it’s an unfortunate reality that many people won’t see beyond that. Well, for the sake of inducing a bit of a balanced conversation – maybe – I’m personally quite interested in the investment in house building, the announcement about giving people in council housing a deposit instead of RTB. Honestly, that’s such an important issue, it dwarfs everything else.
I know the Green Councillors stated they believe that climate was the most important, and it’s a strong consideration for the future, but it is secondary to ensuring people have a place to live. And Conservatives…well, they repeated the same tired arguments; they can be pretty safely ignored these days.
After the wettest winter in Brighton & Hove, the climate is “a strong consideration for the future”? That was told by Labour to the people of Gorton & Denton.
Still doesn’t make it more important than housing though, does it Max? Although I am glad that didn’t become a Reform seat. Your new MP up there seems genuine. First-ever MP by-election win, right?
Hence the Greens’ continued emphasis on social justice
The ideal of council housing is a wonderful pipe-dream.
I voted Labour at the GE, believing the promise that Labour were the party to support business. My business is now taxed to the point where I am seriously questioning carrying on.
Do you honestly still believe the lies?
Focusing on housing, we can see the numbers on new builds and buybacks, so I don’t need to believe either way, Summer; there’s clear proof that they are delivering on this aspect. Is it a perfect solution? Of course not, and I think anyone who would peddle the idea that a perfect solution exists that doesn’t have some pain points is not being very honest with themselves or others.
It’s interesting how Benjamin keeps presenting himself as the voice of balance while consistently defending positions that line up far more with small-c conservative orthodoxy than he seems willing to admit.
Framing a 4.99% council tax rise as simply “unfortunate but necessary” without seriously questioning structural inefficiencies, long-term borrowing strategy, or value for money isn’t neutral — it’s fiscally conservative incrementalism. Accept the rise. Trust the process. Move on. That’s not bold housing reform or transformative local government; it’s managerial status quo politics.
You can support investment in housing — many of us do — while still demanding transparency, measurable outcomes, and accountability for capital projects. Dismissing concerns about waste or scrutiny by pointing to internal audits and cross-party sign-off ignores the reality that institutional oversight doesn’t automatically equal optimal spending. Healthy scepticism about how £1bn is allocated isn’t “tired Conservative arguments”; it’s basic democratic responsibility.
And waving away climate concerns as secondary while arguing for housing-first pragmatism is also a familiar conservative framing: prioritise immediate infrastructure, defer systemic environmental reform. Yet climate resilience and housing quality aren’t competing luxuries — they’re interconnected policy areas. Poorly planned housing that ignores environmental pressures just stores up future costs.
If Benjamin wants to argue for pragmatic governance, fine. But let’s not pretend that defending tax rises without deeper reform, downplaying environmental urgency, and brushing off fiscal scrutiny is somehow above ideology. That’s a political position — and a fairly conservative one at that.
A genuinely balanced conversation would welcome scrutiny, not caricature it.
I think that’s a bit of a stretch, if I’m honest.
Explaining why most councils are choosing that level of tax rise isn’t me waving it through or pretending everything’s perfect. It’s recognising that councils have statutory duties, and very limited ways of raising revenue. You can’t just opt out of those pressures, and having an imbalanced budget in this way would be unlawful.
On scrutiny, I wasn’t dismissing it. Of course, budgets should be challenged. But there’s a difference between healthy scepticism and implying there are no controls at all. The CFO has a legal responsibility to sign off on financial robustness, and the budget goes through cross-party scrutiny. That doesn’t make it flawless, but it does mean there are formal safeguards in place.
On climate, I didn’t “wave it away”. I said housing is the bigger immediate pressure in this budget cycle. And in reality, housing and climate overlap more than people sometimes admit anyway, as part of the question “how should the council tackle the housing crisis?”
Council votes for maximum allowed increase!
And in other news a bear was seen entering the woods with a newspaper and a toilet roll.
They need to somehow get the money that they had to pay for the Eyesore 360…
They see as their cash cows