Council tax will rise by almost 5 per cent in Kingston, with average band D households paying £2,374 in 2024/25.

Kingston Council approved the hike after facing a 'gargantuan task' to balance the books amid rising pressures and demand on services.

The council approved a budget of £178million for 2024/25 on February 29, including a 4.99 per cent hike in council tax – the maximum allowed without a referendum.

The increase includes 2.99 per cent for general services and an extra 2 per cent for adult social care.

Lib Dem council leader Andreas Kirsch said the authority had set a balanced budget despite increasingly challenging circumstances – including the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, high inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, along with increasing demand in adult and children's social care and temporary accommodation.

He added the budget will allow the council to deliver a "fairer, greener and safer Kingston" and "vital services, help and support".

Through the budget, Councillor Kirsch said the authority would further improve parks, upgrade CCTV, progress work on a new specialist autism school in Chessington to expand the provision of special educational needs places in the borough and invest in council homes.

In the longer-term, he continued, the council will buy more homes to help with pressures on temporary accommodation, support the replacement of the Kingfisher leisure centre and improve schools, libraries and community centres.

A council report said the authority needs to save an extra £8m in 2024/25 and aims to deliver the budget largely through transforming how it delivers services.

Plans it has outlined to achieve this up to 2027/28 include adopting stricter enforcement of parking fines, new parking permit areas, scrapping the majority of support for home to school transport for people over the age of 16 and cutting vacant jobs.

But Conservative councillor Rowena Bass slammed the budget as "depressing" and said council services are declining despite increased fees, with potholes getting worse, litter everywhere, libraries on limited opening hours and bins "strewn along the pavements on collection days".

She said: "These are all the basics that residents expect the council to provide well with a high council tax, but have all declined since 2018."

Councillor Bass said residents are "down to one ageing council swimming pool for the whole of the borough, with an increasingly longer wait" for the Kingfisher Leisure Centre replacement, and all they "have to show for the money that's been spent is a massive hole". 

The Kingfisher closed in 2019 and was demolished in 2022, before the council discovered it did not have enough cash in its budget to build the replacement it had originally planned. 

Independent councillor Yvonne Tracey also blasted the authority for hiking council tax by the maximum allowed without a referendum while "residents across the borough are feeling the cost-of-living crisis".

Lib Dem councillor Griseldis Kirsch hit back at opposition councillors for failing to provide alternative budget proposals. Councillor Kirsch said the council had managed to balance the books responsibly despite facing a "gargantuan task".

She added: "We can keep the street lights on. We can provide more than just the basic services for our residents and maintain the 100 percent council tax reduction scheme that truly helps where the need is greatest."

The budget was approved at the meeting, with 40 councillors voting in favour and three against.

The hike means the average band D household in most areas of Kingston will pay total council tax of £2,374.32 in 2024/25. 

This includes an increase in the council's share of the bill by £90.35 to £1,902.92.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan's share will increase by £37.26 for the average band D household to help fund police, fire and transport.

The average band D household in Kingston subject to the Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators' (WPCC) levy will pay higher council tax of £2,413.47, as the band D levy has been set at £39.15 for 2024/25.