TEWKESBURY Borough Council has approved a £9.2m budget including a council tax freeze .

The council has put plans in place to bridge a deficit of £800,000 for 2015/16, while at the same time introducing new measures to support its communities.

On February 19, members of the full council approved its budget which tackles a funding cut of 15.6 per cent to its ongoing central government support grant.

The plans contain a council tax freeze for the fifth year in a row meaning the average household will continue to pay £99.36 - or £1.91 per week - for its borough council services for 2015/16.

Alongside the council tax freeze, new initiatives include putting aside an extra £180,000 to expand the council’s community grant scheme - £30,000 of which would go towards providing a dedicated grants officer to support organisations bidding for regional, national and European funding.

The budget also earmarks £220,000 for disabled facilities grants and to ensure the council’s successful business support grant scheme can continue, a further £50,000 will be provided to support it.

The budget reflects the success of more than £170,000 of savings made this year through the council’s Business Transformation programme – which is in excess of the £150,000 target set for this year. This has mainly been achieved through reviews of some council services, including £146,560 through its Revenues and Benefits service review. As well as securing significant savings, this review entirely removed an eight week backlog of benefit cases and reduced the time it takes to process benefits applications by more than half. Further service reviews will be carried out in 2015/16.

While the council has planned ahead to ensure its services and communities are protected as much as possible, its budget is under increased pressure from a continued reduction of income from a number of areas, including parking – the council recently adopted a strategy to introduce cheaper parking in council-owned car parks – a reduction in grant support, and increased pressure on council services such as benefits and housing due to the economic climate. .

Despite this reality, the council is in a strong position thanks to the forward planning of its member and officer Transform Working Group, which as well as managing the budget proposals looks at ways in which the council can transform itself through the Business Transformation programme to make the council more efficient for its customers. Examples of this include the Public Services Centre at the council offices, which is now home to a wide range of public sector organisations including the DWP’s Job Centre Plus, the police, staff from Gloucestershire’s fire and rescue, and the county council’s Adult and Children’s services.

Tewkesbury Borough Council's Lead Member for Finance Cllr Allen Keyte said: "Since our previous budget, we have introduced a new group to manage our budget proposals, which is made up of members and officers. The work of this group has been nothing short of fantastic and this is clearly reflected in the robust plans we have put forward in this year’s budget.

“Alongside everything outlined in our budget, we are also starting work on building a brand new leisure centre, we’ve made parking in our car parks cheaper, and we are developing a real public services hub at our council offices which is helping to make our residents’ lives easier. As a council we really do put the needs and wants of our customers at the heart of what we do.”