The final part of the city council’s budget for next year was agreed last night (25 February) after council tax levels were set.
The 2.99 per cent increase in the city council’s share of council tax (a total of £306.11 for a Band D property per annum) means the £400,000 additional income has helped the council to avoid making cuts to essential frontline services.
The council’s wider budget plans also revealed ongoing and significant investment in services that residents regularly told us matter most to them – including investing in parks and open spaces, waste and recycling and housing.
Thanks to a much higher than average response rate to our 2025-26 budget survey (2,176 compared to an average of 1,427), we heard more about what matters to our residents:
- People love Norwich as a place to live – 67% reported being happy/very happy with Norwich as a place to live, work and visit.
- The majority of people (64%) were supportive/very supportive of our investment approach to services and major projects for the city.
- 50% of people were in favour of increasing the city council’s share of council tax by 2.99% to safeguard services while 30% were against this approach.
Mike Stonard, leader of the council, said: “We have worked hard to find a way to prevent cuts to frontline services again for another year, despite this getting increasingly difficult with each passing year.
“We know how much our residents rely on us to continue to provide them with services that make a really positive difference to their lives. I’m proud that all that work has paid off and that we are in a position to be able to invest in our services, invest in our people and invest in our city.”
Next year the council will spend a total of £107m on vital public services for the city, having identified a total of £3.2m in savings as part of the solution to balance the books.
Alongside the delivery of day-to-day services, next year’s budget set out plans to invest £29.9m in critical infrastructure for the city next year, which forms part of a total of £46.9m of capital investment over the next five years up to 2030.
The council will also continue to prioritise housing in the city, with a budget commitment of £7.6m to invest in new social housing.
In addition, there was a commitment to retain the current council tax reduction scheme, which provides relief of up to 100 per cent on tax bills for those on the lowest incomes.
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