Redbridge Council has voted to increase council tax by almost 5% after a challenging financial year.
Cllrs approved a 4.99% hike, the highest it can go without a public referendum, at a special meeting on Thursday (27 February).
That will mean residents in an average band-D property will pay an extra £8.30 each month from 1 April, as their yearly bill climbs to £2,189.
Tenants in social and ‘affordable’ housing will also see their rents go up by 2.7%.
Council leader Kam Rai said last week that the increase was “not taken lightly” but called it “modest” compared to extraordinary hikes of 10% elsewhere in the country.
Deputy leader Vanisha Solanki said it was “necessary” to keep up with increasing costs and ensure “services continue without compromise”.
Redbridge Conservative Paul Canal, who leads the official opposition, voted against the “gouging” hike and blamed Chancellor Rachel Reeves “damaging” decision to raise National Insurance.
He added that while the “budget was balanced,” some savings would be “very hard to achieve”.
The Bridge ward cllr rhetorically asked the Labour administration “who they could blame” now that Labour was in power nationally, but was met with a chorus of “You”.
The council tax hike comprises a 2% rise in the adult social care precept and a 2.99% increase in general tax. The increases in fees are expected to generate around £7.9million for the council.
The town hall overspent by around £22m last year, as it struggled to rein in pressures on housing and social care.
Cllr Rai said the “extreme” austerity measures introduced by the Conservative government in 2010 had “turned people into problems”.
The directors of each department have all been instructed to make cuts wherever they can, which deputy leader Vanisha Solanki said would lower the shortfall to around £15m.
Cllr Rai previously said the town hall had spent a total of £52m on keeping residents in nightly hotels and bed-and-breakfast style accommodation.
The budget for 2025/26 has allocated £205m to build new temporary accommodation while £38m will go towards building permanent homes, which it says are necessary to reduce expenditure.
Redbridge built 283 in 2024 and 121 ‘affordable’ homes. However, that falls far below the council’s new annual target of 2,407, as set by the new Labour government last December.
The town hall will also spend an extra £20m on its public highways, with a combined £4.2m going towards resurfacing pavements and roads.
Elsewhere, £8m has been earmarked for new leisure facilities – including an expanded centre in Wanstead, a climbing centre in Ilford and the long-delayed lido in Valentine’s Park.
Cllr Rai said: “If we got funded correctly, like we should have and our people deserve to, we’d put more [money] in there. But, we’re using the money we have in the best way possible.”
The town hall was allocated £71.2m in funding by the central government in December, but the leader warned it would prove “inadequate”.
The Redbridge Conservatives proposed that the council trim its planned spending by around £128m over the next two years, by scrapping plans to purchase homes. They also suggested cutting extra funding for the lido and refurbishing various leisure facilities, while redirecting money into CCTV and resurfacing ‘major’ roads.
The motion was ultimately shot down by the Labour-run council.
At the start of the meeting, the Tories clashed with Labour over the future of Broadmead Bridge Road.
The Woodford bridge has been closed since July 2023 and local residents are forced to follow lengthy diversions. The council estimates it will cost £50m to repair.
The opposition unsuccessfully proposed a motion to redirect community infrastructure levy (CIL) money to rebuild and reopen the bridge. CIL is levied from property developers to fund local infrastructure projects, but only once their work has begun.
Cllr Canal said it was “shameful” there had been “no [material] progress,” after 18 months of inspections and concrete testing.
He said “furious” residents’ lives had been “inconvenienced massively,” adding: “We have a Labour government, a Labour council and a Labour mayor.
“These should be halcyon days, ambrosia flowing through the rivers. And yet there is still no money to fix the bridge.”
In response, Cllr Rai said he had met with Transport for London “several times,” and held meetings with the Mayor of London’s office and the Department for Transport.
He added that CIL can be “unpredictable” in nature and was not a guaranteed source of income.
Over the past year, Redbridge has managed to grow its reserves by about £1.5m. The latest figures show them sitting just shy of £40.5m, up from £38.9m.
The neighbouring borough councils in Havering and Waltham Forest also voted to increase council tax by 4.99% last week.
