Crawley Borough Council to put up its share of council tax bills

If approved by full council later this month, the change would see Band D bills rise by £6.55 to £225.34.

The bills would also include expected rises of £15 from Sussex Police and £77.67 from WSCC.

At cabinet on Wednesday, members were told that £261,970 would have to be taken from reserves to plug a gap in the 2023/24 budget.

The additional costs of homelessness, pay and inflation were the main reasons for the shortfall.

A gap of just over £1m was forecast for the 2024/25 budget.

The capital budget will stand at £72.3m, with an increase of £900,000 to pay for water-saving retrofitting work on Crawley Homes properties.

Another £1.15m was added to help provide temporary accommodation for the growing number of people in need.

A report to the cabinet said there are currently 396 homeless households living in temporary homes, with 206 of those beinghoused in very expensive nightly-paid hotel to B&B accommodation.

Council leader Michael Jones said: “We’ve done everything we can to minimise what has to be taken out of reserves.

“This is a prudent and sensible budget for the year that will maintain front-line services to a standard that we have always valued.

“There will be time over the next year to work out what the council will need to do in order to deal with some of the unexpected costs we will be facing in this and future years.

“I do feel confident that the council will be able to proceed and meet those challenges in the future.”