West Berkshire to reduce street lights to save cash

More than £1.2m of cuts are being planned by cash-strapped West Berkshire Council.

Officers are proposing a raft of belt tightening measures, including fewer roads being gritted over winter, and literally turning the lights off.

It proposes reducing the amount of time it has streetlights on - saving £50k a year by turning them off between midnight and 5am.

Apparently, the council isn’t legally obliged to keep the streets lit.

It also has a proposal on the table for a council tax initiative where residents in band G and H properties will be formally consulted to see if they would support donations to a council-led charity - although there is no more detail.

These, as well as a hike in adult social care fees, and exploring options with the external market for delivering day services, plus a general uplift in its fees, are scheduled for discussion at the council’s executive committee meeting this Thursday.

The council says that due to large cost demands in social care, and especially children’s social care, there has been a significant increase in the overall savings requirement needed for 2025-26.

This is up from an assumption of £6.5m to now an overall savings requirement of £12.1m.

This is mainly due to an increase in social care costs in the care model - rising from an assumed £5m growth to £8m and includes greater demand and inflation for children with disability placement costs and increased home to school transport costs of £1.3m.