Cambridge city councillors have approved the budget for 2025/2026 which puts the council on track to meet its target of saving £6 million a year from April 2026, to keep the council financially sustainable while investing in key priorities: building new council homes, supporting community initiatives, and tackling climate change.
The council confirmed in October that spending would need to be reduced by £6 million a year by April 2026, with up to £5.5 million more identified by 2029 (totalling £11.5 million). Without making these savings, the rise in the council’s outgoings was set to outpace any increase in income year on year, with projected spending for 2029/2030 being £11.5 million per year more than its income.
While the council currently has healthy reserves or ‘savings’ of around £20 million, if no action was taken to balance the budget, these reserves would run out by 2029/2030 as they would have to be drawn on to cover an annual deficit, rather than investing in projects that bring long term benefits.
Cllr Simon Smith, Executive Councillor for Finances, said: “Setting a balanced budget isn’t just a legal duty, but a moral duty – if we don’t keep the council’s spending in line with our income, we risk exhausting our reserves and having to stop discretionary services. Prudent cost cutting now means we don’t have to make more painful and less-considered savings down the line.
“We have prioritised finding efficiencies in the way we deliver services, and charging for services to protect essential frontline and safety net services for our most vulnerable residents.
“The budget we have approved will allow us to do the basics better – for example a one-off investment in bin sensors will minimise crews making unnecessary trips to empty public bins that aren’t full, reducing crews’ journey times and our carbon footprint in the long term. 61% of respondents to our budget survey supported investing in smart technology like this.
“When it comes to increasing our income, we’ve decided to make changes including increasing our share of council tax by an average of £6.74 per year, increasing car parking charges, charging non-Cambridge residents more to use the city’s pools, and to charge those using the pest control service which was previously free. All of these measures received majority support in our budget survey.
“To make the required savings, we needed to make a difficult decision to close three under-used public toilets. The resulting savings will support our programme to upgrade the most frequently used public toilets, and we have recently invested over £1 million to upgrade multiple toilets across the city. The council continues to provide 12 public toilet facilities and will soon be re-opening Silver Street and is developing plans to upgrade Jesus Green facilities.
“The survey feedback was incredibly helpful in providing a clear indicator of areas that people care about. I’m pleased we are able to continue with many of the areas of work that received more support than opposition.”
The council will continue to commit over £1 million to its annual community grants fund, which funds organisations such as Citizens Advice, Cambridge United Foundation, Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum, Romsey Mill and Rowan Humberstone.
In addition, some core areas of work will continue to be prioritised in line with public support. This includes running community centres; continued funding of re-deployable CCTV cameras and a one-off investment of £120,000 to upgrade our CCTV control rooms; delivering equalities and cohesion work – such as providing funding to help support the Pink Festival Group charity to run their annual Cambridge Pride event; supporting residents to stay healthy and well with subsidies for activities for those who need it most; and supporting and delivering the ongoing arts and cultural development programme – including improvements at the Corn Exchange, running the annual free fireworks event, and a one-off programme of free folk events in 2025.
Two thirds of respondents also supported the redevelopment or sale of commercial properties that generate the least income. As part of the council’s Civic Quarter project to reimagine the Corn Exchange, Guildhall and Market Square, the aim will be to relocate council staff from offices at Mandela House into the Guildhall, reducing overheads and increasing income on city centre office space while also investing in retrofitting our buildings to reduce our emissions.
Cllr Smith continued: “At the same time, we’ve identified changes to our organisational structure which will improve the way we deliver some services. This is always difficult as it puts hard working officers’ jobs at risk, but we have a duty to deliver services in the most efficient way possible. We have deleted 43 full time equivalent posts, of which 30 were vacant, meaning we’ll see an overall reduction of around 13 full time roles leaving the organisation. I would urge any members of staff who are at risk to engage with the wide range of support that is being made available.
“By taking these difficult decisions now, we’ve been able to protect our ongoing investment in our priorities – as we continue to deliver essential community services; build on our recent successes in building more new council homes than almost any other council in the country, with 1,000 more council homes to be built by 2030; and commit to a package of measures that makes this our greenest budget yet.”
Some of the green measures that the council has committed to include the City Centre District Heat Network, retrofitting council and private homes, continuing to install a network of approximately 600 electric vehicle chargers in our car parks and, through the Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service, developing a Renewable Energy Network to charge waste vehicles and preparing to roll out a new food waste collection service for residents in 2026.
Councillors also agreed to increase council rents by 2.7% from 1 April 2025 in line with government guidelines for council and shared ownership rents (equating to an average increase of £3.37 per week), and affordable rents (equating to an average increase of £5.06 per week).
The General Fund budget setting report and Housing Revenue Account budget setting report, both discussed at Full Council on Monday 24 February, set out further information about the council’s budget for 2025/2026. £4.9 million of the £6 million target savings have been identified for the financial year starting in April 2025, meaning the remaining £1.1 million will need to be identified by April 2026 to meet the £6 million savings target.
