Warrington Council Finance – The Road to Ruin
Recently the much awaited Best Value Inspection Report on the finances of Warrington Borough Council was published. It contains a huge amount of information covering 71 pages, including appendices. The report contains some serious issues with the state of the finances that need to be brought to the attention of every council tax payer in the Borough.
The current Council borrowing is £1.9 billion. This is more debt than that of a number of small countries. There are 98,000 households in the Borough and this level of debt represents £19,400 per household. The total budgeted income for 2025/26 is £197 million and if expressed as a ratio to borrowing, it is 9.7 years. A typical mortgage lender would only allow borrowing of 3 times annual income, but the Public Works Loan Board, who have lent the Council the majority of the money, do not appear to use such criteria when making loans.
On reviewing the budget information in the Report, and that...
