Chorley Council delivers balanced budget proposals, focussing on excellent services and key investments to support communities despite ongoing economic concerns

20 January 2023

Chorley Council delivers balanced budget proposals, focussing on excellent services and key investments to support communities despite ongoing economic concerns 

Investment in housing and community facilities, providing access to good jobs, and providing a thriving town centre and local businesses is on the agenda for Chorley Council in their 2023/24 budget proposals.

The council is seeking resident views on their plans before a full decision will be made in February. 

Residents can visit the consultation to see the full proposals and share their views.

Individuals, families and businesses across Chorley have faced the impact of Covid-19 and ongoing challenges of the Cost of Living crisis and its vital for the Council to respond to these challenges by making sure that the right services and support measures are in place to help protect the borough. 

Priorities are for a green and sustainable borough, where the council delivers housing where residents can live well, healthy, safe in engaged communities, and a strong economy.  

This includes: 

• Further investment in affordable homes and adaptation grants, with measures to improve home energy efficiency and to investigate flexible housing solutions to meet the needs of all communities 
• Delivering support and energy improvement measures for businesses 
• Delivering environmental improvements such as electric vehicle charging points and being proactive in cleaning up neighbourhoods, in addition to planting more trees across the borough as 'green corridors'
• Additional investment and improvement to Astley Hall
• Improvements to rural business connectivity
• The launch of a skills and jobs programme for residents
• Support for families and young people to access services that can give them the best start in life

There is ongoing uncertainty around future funding for local government, however Chorley Council has been able to continue to invest in local services and to generate income to reinvest back into local areas. 

Councillor Peter Wilson, Deputy Leader of Chorley Council said, "Funding to the Council has fallen from over £17m in 2016/17 to approximately £14m in 2023/24 despite increasing costs and demand pressures for services.  

"With no long-term direction from Government on funding, we have been working hard to reduce our costs and maintain services to protect what matters most to our residents. This has included changing the way that we work and finding new ways to deliver services more efficiently.  

"We have continued to generate income to enable the council to be less reliant on central government funding including £834,000 each year in net income from our various investment sites including the Market Walk Shopping Centre"

In addition to the saving and income generated by the council, it is also necessary for a proposed 1.99% increase in Council Tax - around 7p a week. 

Councillor Wilson continued, "While we propose our portion of Council Tax rises by 1.99%, this is less that what the Government expect local councils to do. Because we have worked in way to save money and to generate income, we have not needed to rise higher that what we thought was necessary to deliver our budget and to continue excellent services for our residents."

"Chorley has the second lowest Council Tax rate in Lancashire for a Band D property, and we will do what we can to ensure that we are able continue to deliver high quality services and low tax for our residents. 

"Of course, we will also continue to support those most vulnerable and in need of additional council tax support through our council tax support scheme."

The consultation will be open until 6 February 2023. All documentation and survey to share your views can be found at www.chorley.gov.uk/budgetconsultation