Council sets sustainable budget for 2025/26

West Lancashire’s Borough Councillors met on Friday 14 March 2025 to agree a sustainable budget for the future for the Council.  

Councillors approved £18m worth of spending, for the year 2025/26, for services such as retaining the Rangers Services through grant funding, continuation of support to businesses, partly funded through UK Shared Prosperity and retaining the Leisure Service with up to £1.2m being agreed directly for Nye Bevan and Park Pool leisure centres. 

Elected Members were asked to approve measures, or present legitimate alternative options to vote on. Implementation of the approved savings options will now mean the Council can live within its financial means and is able to protect funding for initiatives which support its residents and local businesses.  

Like many local authorities across the country, West Lancashire Borough Council has been faced with identifying significant savings within its services in response to the current financial climate, 92% cuts in government funding since 2010 and rising costs in energy and national insurance.  

Councillor Mark Anderson, Lead Member for Finance said: “While identifying these savings has been the right and responsible thing to do, we will need to look at further income-raising or cuts to services in the future to ensure we continue to balance the budget over the medium term. 

“Our intention for the next year is to build on this sustainable budget to find more ways of providing value-for-money services for our residents in an economically viable way”.