Fantastic Council services to continue as Ashfield tax freeze approved

As part of the annual Budget, Members at Full Council on 3 March approved recommendations to freeze Council Tax for the next 12 months.

This follows a glowing report from the Local Government Association in 2024, highlighting the Council’s strong financial position and healthy level of reserves.

Ashfield District Council is the only council in the Midlands and at the time of writing only one of 426 local authorities in the country to be freezing its portion of Council Tax for the next financial year.

This means, for 2025/2026, Ashfield District Council will receive around 8% of the income created through Council Tax which is used to deliver key services in the District.

Some 76% of Council Tax will go to Nottinghamshire County Council, while 12% will go to the Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner and the remaining 4% to Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue.

Despite the freeze, the Council has reassured residents that its fantastic services, which includes its £62.6 million Towns Fund projects, Big Spring Clean initiative and 2-hour free parking at its car parks will continue.

Thanks to healthy reserves, the Council will also freeze its Garden Waste service cost and will continue with its investments which have equated to more than £200 million over the past 5 years.

Cllr Dave Shaw, Supporting Cabinet Member for Finance at Ashfield District Council said: “We are thrilled to be freezing our portion of Council Tax for 2025/2026 for our residents.

“Due to our healthy financial position, it is felt that now is not the right time to add additional financial strain to our residents.

“Thanks to our reserves, we will still be able to deliver some of the best services provided in the East Midlands.

“As a Council, we have worked hard over the past 8 years to be in this strong financial position and I look forward to discussing this further with colleagues at a later date.”

Cllr Jason Zadrozny, Leader at Ashfield District Council added: “Thanks to our creative, forward-looking business model, we have been able to build healthy reserves which we can use to benefit our residents further.

“We strive to be ‘great’ in all we do, and this is just another example of how we are working hard to support residents in Ashfield.”