The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council will lose more than £7m over the next five years as a direct consequence of the town’s regeneration.
The Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and plan for 2023/24-2027/28 outlined that due to the increase in energy costs and high levels of inflation the council will have to save over £17m to balance its budgets over the next five years.
Cllr David Hilton, cabinet member for finance said at a meeting last week: “Cabinet members should be aware that of this [£17m] £7.2m is a loss of business rates as a great consequence of the critically important regeneration of Maidenhead.”
The council originally estimated the loss of business rates as a result of the regeneration to be £2.5m.
But, both Hilton and Cllr Andrew Johnson, leader of the council and chairman, reiterated the importance of the regeneration despite the loss of money.
Johnson said: “The much-needed regeneration of Maidenhead, that is now starting to show genuine shoots of opportunity and indeed some fantastic new businesses starting to open, particularly around the town hall and quarter.”
Johnson also pointed out that it did not “necessarily equate” that the council would actually have collected this amount of business rates over the 5-year period had they not gone ahead with the regeneration.
The report also noted that an additional £3m could be added to the estimated budget gap as a result of the implementation costs of the government’s adult social care reform.
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