OXFORD residents will on average pay an extra £6.25 a year in council tax in the short term, as the council continues to plug a £29m hole left by Covid.

Oxford City Council approved its budget last night (February 17), which included the tax hike which will help to pay for a £23.6m programme of works over the next year.

As the budget was signed off by the Labour-led council, its deputy leader said the budget would helped to ‘rebuild Oxford’ after the pandemic.

The average household in a Band D home in Oxford will now pay £6.25 extra in the year from April in tax for city council services, amounting to a total of £313.92.

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This will be added to the extra cash which Oxfordshire County Council and Thames Valley Police are both asking for, meaning the average Oxford home is likely to pay £2,130.64 over the year once all the elements of the tax are agreed.

The majority of councillors voted in favour of the budget, mainly those in the Labour group and independents, with Lib Dems and Greens either voting against or abstaining on it.

Ed Turner, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for finance, said: “All of us, in one way or another, will have been affected by the dreadful events of the last year. And all of us will want to do what we can to rebuild Oxford – supporting our services, our economy, our communities. This budget sets out a way forward.”

Ed Turner, City Council Deputy Leader

Ed Turner, City Council Deputy Leader

The 2021/22 budget includes commitments to continue funding a youth ambition service, and ongoing work on climate change.

It also includes some cuts like scrapping refreshments at council meetings, and savings on office costs due to staff working from home.

Because of Covid, the council forecasts it will accrue an extra £29m in costs and losses over the next five years, but has partly balanced this out with £11m from its own savings.

As part of its longer term programme, the council is planning to bolster its guaranteed income by investing in shops and offices.

To do this, it will borrow £20m of cash from the Public Works Loan Board which will be used to invest in shops and offices.

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It has also signed off on other long term building schemes, like overhauling the Bullingdon Community Centre and East Oxford Community Centre, and a £50m project to retrofit council houses with energy efficiency measures over the next 10 years.

The city council’s Lib Dem and Green groups had both proposed changes to the budget to remove the property investments in favour of renewable energy.

Green councillor Craig Simmons proposed a £51m investment in solar farms, which he said was affordable as the council had originally planned to borrow that amount to buy property.

He said: “Rather than speculatively investing in commercial property… we propose the council join the growing ranks of councils investing in solar farms.”

Lib Dem councillor Tom Landell Mills was sceptical of the move to invest in property, and said he expected the decision to be revisited in the near future.

But Labour councillor John Tanner said he thought there had been a ‘misunderstanding’ about the kinds of buildings the city council wanted to invest in.

He said: “Investment in retail is not a good idea. The sort of things we need to get into are the investment in the science park in my own ward of Littlemore where buildings are going up so people can pursue science.”

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