UPDATE 24/02/2026: Labour’s City Council budget passed last night IN FULL and without any amendments from the other parties.
Labour Councillors on Oxford City Council have just published their plans for the council’s upcoming 4-year budget. The proposals will be discussed and voted on at a full council meeting on 23rd February 👇
- FREE bulky waste collections coming back
- NEW live music events fund (to help keep music live)
- EXTRA grass verge cutting (Oxfordshire County Council still refuses to do it…)
- NEW cycle path gritting (the County Council refuses to do this, too!)
- MORE officers to fight crime and anti-social behaviour (including fly-tipping)
- EXTRA grants for community projects and charities
- £30K for the Blackbird Leys Adventure Playground
- NEW grassroots sports clubs fund
- £200K for safer moorings on the river
- FULL council tax relief for those on the lowest incomes
- FREEZE on all pitch hire fees (2nd year running!)
- 1,692 new council homes (because Oxford needs homes)
- ALL homelessness funding safeguarded
Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Assets, Cllr Ed Turner
In the run-up to this budget, there was significant uncertainty, because the government had announced fundamental reforms to the way local government is financed, under a programme called “Fairer Funding”. We took an appropriately cautious approach planning our budgets, and in fact, when looking at all income streams in the round, the funding settlement has led to the release of around an additional £4.7 million favourable over the next four years. We are of course aware that the government also proposes to reorganise local government in Oxfordshire, and so in fact a new council is likely to take over in 2028, but it would “inherit” funding earmarked at this stage for Oxford City Council, and so we continue to plan as though our council were continuing to exist for the four-year period. We are also taking a prudent view of some pressures, such as potential reductions in car park income, the need for additional legal capacity at the City Council, treatment of National Insurance, and likely assumptions about council tax collection rates.
Nonetheless, this welcome boost of funding from the government has enabled us to look closely at people’s priorities, as expressed to councillors but also through our annual survey of residents. A number of significant changes are proposed (and discussed in paragraph 20 of the report below).
In particular, we are seeing very significant pressure to act now, and act big, on the issue of fly-tipping. Residents are reporting more and more fly-tipped items. In addition, some are concerned that the County Council’s decision to require appointments to be made at Redbridge is an inconvenience and might lead to increased fly-tipping. So in this budget, we propose:
- To remove charges for the collection of bulky items of waste, as soon as is feasible, and certainly from April 2026. This will alleviate householders already burdened by cost of living pressures. There is absolutely no excuse, ever, for flytipping, but we hope the ending of charges will also reduce its occurrence.
- An expanded team of officers, funded both by council tenants’ rents and general taxpayers, to work on reducing crime and anti-social behaviour, in conjunction with Thames Valley Police. We expect this expanded team to make the reporting of fly-tipping, and catching fly-tippers, an early priority.
- We also believe that this team will help people feel safer in their communities – again a major priority emerging from our survey of residents. We do not engage in consultation for the sake of it but do so because we want what people think to shape our priorities.
There are some other important proposals:
- We propose expanded funding to grit cycle paths. With extreme weather sadly an ever more frequent occurrence, funding was included last year but new equipment was not available to undertake gritting for the recent cold snap, and we are sadly aware of a significant number of falls leading to injury. Gritting will be available and deliverable with the extra funds. We also encourage the County Council (which is ultimately responsible for highways) to consider measures to support pedestrians who risk slipping over.
- We propose an additional cut of the City’s verges each year. The County Council reduced funding in this area, we increased it last year, and propose to do so again, as excessively long grass looks untidy, and again we have been told it undermines people’s pride in their areas.
- We propose to reinstate additional grant funding in the latter years of this budget. It was reluctantly proposed to reduce funding last year, but with the extra resources we can make more funds available, which are expected especially to benefit the City’s excellent advice agencies. There are two other areas of increased grant funding. Last year, the Council needed to reallocate an officer post on international links towards its wider events team. This places a greater burden on the volunteers who support those links, so we propose a new, £20k annual grant pot to support them in working in partnership with the City Council to enable these links to flourish. Secondly, we propose new fund to support live music projects in Oxford, The member champion in this area has heard how this is a sector particularly exposed to current financial pressures, and while there is a limit to the amount of support the City Council can give commercial events, we believe having a flexible pot available will enable events which might otherwise not be viable to flourish. A process to apply for this money will be made available in due course.
- We propose several measures to support grassroots sport and play. Specifically, we propose a substantial fund to support grassroots sports clubs with bids to improve their facilities (whether this will be as part of larger bids or to undertake urgent smaller items), we propose to freeze all pitch hire fees for the second year running for council pitches, we propose funding for Blackbird Leys Adventure Playground as a one-off, provisionally to improve the quality of the outdoor space, and we confirm our funding for a reinstated creche at Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre.
- There is growing concern about the safety of boats moored on the River Thames from Folly Bridge towards Iffley Lock and beyond. Our proposal is to allocate £200,000 towards addressing this issue, but it will need to be done in partnership with the Environment Agency, and landowners such as colleges of Oxford University.
One feature of the changed way of giving councils their funding is that substantial funds previously earmarked separately to help homeless and vulnerably housed people will instead be “rolled into” the main council grant. However, we confirm that we intend to safeguard this money in full, going forward, for its original purpose. Sadly, homelessness in Oxford remains a significant problem and we want to do our very best to support those who are in this most difficult position. We also confirm our intention to take further radical action to tackle Oxford’s housing crisis. Funding for 1,692 new council homes is to be made available, as well as £32 million to help purchase 260 properties to be used as temporary accommodation.
Finally, we propose to continue funding for full council tax reduction for those on the lowest incomes – we see no sense in issuing council tax demands for small amounts of money to those with the least ability to pay.
To be able to propose these positive, radical measures to make a real difference to people’s lives is heartening, and we are confident that local people will be able to see the difference in their neighbourhoods.