Five per cent Council Tax hike endorsed

The increase, less than half the rate of inflation, will help manage a significant financial gap in the council budget caused by high inflation and rising costs.

As a result of the hike a Council Tax payer in a Band A property will pay £904.07 and those in Band H £3,322.

Across-the-board savings have also been identified but members made a commitment to protect front-line services in the financial year 2023/24.

Councillor Euan Jardine, the Conservative leader of the council, said: “When I first took the post of leader one of the first things I did was meet with Councillor Elaine Thornton-Nicol (the leader of the SNP opposition group) and we had an hour and a half conversation and then we said at the end ‘why didn’t we talk to each other for the last five years?’, because we had so much in common in terms of what we are looking to do. It’s the communities, it’s people. It’s not putting politics in the way.

“To me it was very key that we used that to build this budget, that collaboration of working with the Liberal Democrats, the Independents, the Green Party’s Councillor Mackinnon, to bring this all together as one council, so we can show the people of the Scottish Borders we can work together for them.”

Councillor Jardine referenced how the council’s ‘Summer Converations’ with members of the public – which generated 866 responses – had been fed in to the budget proposals.

Budget commitments set out in the budget include protecting teacher numbers, a £21.9m investment in the roads network over the next three years, three new secondary schools in Peebles, Galashiels and Hawick and two new care villages in Hawick and Tweedbank, investment in Demand Responsive Transport and extra CCTV provision.

Further budget commitments include financial support for Live Borders, a £2.2m investment in community spaces and play parks over the next three years and protection of funding for third sector and voluntary partners across the region.

Conservative Councillor Mark Rowley, the authority’s executive member for Service Delivery and Transformation, said: “There are councils across Scotland that will be going head to head over their budget at the moment. There will be councils like our neighbouring Dumfries and Galloway that are looking at a higher increases in Council Tax and whilst we regret having to raise any charges I’m really pleased we have agreed a settled budget.”

The SNP’s Councillor Elaine Thornton-Nicol added: “For people sitting outside of this process it must be really strange to suddenly hear us use the words collegiate, collaborative, working together because back in May it wasn’t potholes and buildings that elected us it was people and this needed to be about people and delivering the front-line services that make a difference to those people.”