Maximum council tax rise approved in Hertfordshire

A maximum 4.99% council tax rise has been approved by councillors in Hertfordshire.

The increase forms part of the Liberal Democrat administration's £1.2bn budget for 2026-27, which was voted through after a six-hour meeting.

The budget includes extra money for children in care, older people and those with disabilities.

Opposition parties said the financial package relied on "fantasy economics".

With the authority facing a shortfall of £6m by the end of this financial year, all non-essential spending was halted at the end of 2025.

The Liberal Democrat administration said the government's Fairer Funding Review would result in the council losing over £40m a year in grant funding by 2028.

Nevertheless, it said it had been able to find an extra £108m to invest in services for residents.

The council tax will rise by the maximum allowed by the government without a referendum.

The budget included:

• £44m for care for older and more vulnerable people
• £16m for stable homes for children in care and with disabilities
• £6.3m to improve opportunities for children with special needs
• £1.5m for nearly 200 more 20mph zones

At Tuesday's budget meeting, Reform UK's Matthew Hurst proposed amendments to the budget that included scrapping 20mph zones and the council's central Diversity, Equality and Inclusion officers.

He said the 20mph zones were a "Liberal Democrat vanity project", which was "unaffordable, unpopular and completely unnecessary".

His amendment was rejected by 41 votes to nine.

The Conservative opposition leader, Richard Roberts, told the meeting the budget was not "a budget that was delivering for 1.2 million bright Hertfordshire futures."

Instead, it was "built on a wing and a prayer", while his Tory colleague Alexander Curtis described it as "fantasy economics".

The Labour group supported the budget, with the party's Ian Albert saying the budget moved the authority on from being "an ailing, tired Conservative-led council".

Kirsty Taylor-Moran said her Green group was "grateful that we are not looking at a budget with catastrophic cuts to library or youth services".

The budget was passed by 40 votes to 21, raising the average council tax for a Band D house by £88.

After the meeting, the Liberal Democrat leader of the council, Steve Jarvis, denied the budget was lacking in substance.

He said it had "£1.2m of substance - there's a lot of extra investment.

"To describe it as not having much content simply isn't true."

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