Derry City and Strabane District Council has agreed its budget for the incoming 2025/26 financial year and set a District Rates increase for ratepayers of 4.92%.
Council says this will see an average rates bill increasing by £28.96 per annum or 56 pence per week.
The regional rate, set by Central Government, will be determined by the end of March, and will also have an impact on the overall rates bill.
The budget was set at a Special Council Meeting on Monday, February 10 where it was highlighted that the increase comprised a 3.42% baseline increase to cover the significant statutory financial challenges and service demands facing Council along with a 1.50% rates investment towards the financing of Council’s hugely ambitious and exciting capital strategy.
In terms of the baseline increase, Members were advised of the range of statutory pressures and new service demands facing Council services including pay pressures, Employer’s national insurance costs and cost inflation which have been partially offset by some rate-base growth, additional waste income and continued efficiencies across Council services.
It was outlined to Members at the meeting that pay pressures continue to be a significant issue for Council, particularly in the current year whereby the Employer’s national insurance increases imposed by the recent UK budget have added circa £1.1m to Council’s pay bill and have had a direct 1.21% impact on rates bills.
Unfortunately, despite ongoing lobbying by Councils, no funding has been confirmed from Treasury to offset this additional cost for public sector employers in Northern Ireland.
Facilitated by new waste income, the baseline rates position also includes investment of £1.266m (1.64%) towards the reinstatement of previously implemented service cuts as well as new service pressures and demands.
These include costs associated with assuming the responsible reservoir manager role at Creggan Reservoir; addressing budgetary and resourcing pressures within our key core front line services e.g. grounds maintenance, refuse collection, street cleansing and cemeteries; additional investment into grant aid programmes within sports development, community centre venues, consensual local growth partnerships, advice and cultural organisations; additional resources within community services to address emerging and immediate priorities e.g. Whole Systems approach to Obesity and Ending Violence against Women and Girls strategy; as well as additional tourism resource focused on screen and food tourism.
This year’s budget will therefore allow Council to continue to provide critical frontline services to ratepayers with a clear focus and commitment to protecting jobs as well as the continued provision of funding to organisations who rely on Council support to deliver community services and projects.
Central to this year’s rates process is the substantial positive progress made to Council’s capital funding strategy and its ambitious capital development plans.
To date over £200 million of capital projects have been completed or are progressing with full funding in place.
These include Acorn Farm, Derg Active, Daisyfield Sports Hub, new Northwest cemetery provision at Mullenan Road, the DNA Museum and COVID recovery small settlements investment across the District, as well as the recently approved Riverine and Strabane Public Realm projects.
The additional 1.50% rates capital investment agreed today along with funding expected to be secured from the Northern Ireland Executive towards City of Derry Airport will go towards financing Council’s hugely ambitious and exciting capital financing strategy.
Building on the investment secured following the signing of the transformative City Deal and Inclusive Future Fund investment plan in September 2024, Council will now have financing of up to £100m in place towards it’s 2 key strategic leisure aspirations in Templemore and Strabane.
This will enable the two projects to progress to detailed design, consultation and planning with some further rates investment in 2026/27 and 2027/28 allowing the projects to progress to construction.
2025/26 will also see options and costings being further progressed and detailed designs developed for new civic/ commercial office development as a key component of the wider aspirations for the future Central Riverfront development and university expansion.
Members were also informed that, whilst work progresses across the Council District on Council’s fully funded programme of community and statutory capital projects, this years’ rates investment would ensure an additional £10m of funding could be made available to progress several further projects.
This will supplement the £4m funding previously earmarked for a range of these projects and the hope that Council investment can be further leveraged through the securing of external investment from Central Government.
Following the conclusion of the rates process, immediate considerations by the Capital and Corporate projects Planning Group in respect of the prioritisation of projects will progress.
The new agreed District rate for the year ending 31st March 2026 is 39.5993 p in the £ for Non-Domestic properties and of 0.6369p in the £ for Domestic properties.
This represents a 4.92% District rates increase for all ratepayers.
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