Reading’s Liberal Democrat councillors have voted against the Council’s 2026/27 budget, citing concerns over depleted reserves and last-minute financial planning that leaves future years unbalanced.

Speaking at last night’s Full Council meeting, the three Lib Dem councillors challenged the Labour administration over a budget that was only balanced two weeks earlier through an emergency £3.6 million draw from the Financial Resilience Reserve, leaving the Financial Resilience Reserve set to fall to just £269,000 by 2027/28.

Reserves running on empty

Councillor Anne Thompson highlighted the scale of the Council’s financial pressures: “To balance the budget, we will draw down £7.302 million from reserves — almost double the size of the drawdown a year ago. Our reserves are shrinking. The General Fund Revenue Reserve has fallen from £49.8 million to a forecast of £30.2 million in just one year, a 39% decline. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know that this can’t go on much longer.”

Cllr Thompson criticised the government’s funding settlement, noting that Reading receives nothing from the £865 million Recovery Grant despite having above-average deprivation in income, education, crime and barriers to housing. “Had the Recovery Grant been distributed through the fair funding formula as originally intended, Reading would have received an additional £2.05 million. That is a deliberate political choice by the Labour government in Westminster, and it is not fair.”

She added: “Our Adult Social Care caseload has grown by 311 people in nine months. Our looked after children numbers are rising when numbers are falling nationally. Yet we have three Labour MPs. Where were their voices for Reading when these decisions were being made?”

Last-minute budget raises concerns

Councillor James Moore focused on the administration’s handling of the budget: “This budget was not balanced in December. It had a £4.4 million gap as recently as ten weeks ago. It was only finally closed two weeks before this meeting by drawing an additional £3.6 million from reserves at the last minute. That is not long-term planning. That is firefighting.”

Cllr Moore pointed to a pattern of financial management problems: “Year after year of overspending — £9.3 million last year, £4 million forecast this year. Year after year of underdelivering on savings. The savings programme has delivered 73% of what was planned last year, and KPMG’s own forward look suggests only 66% will be delivered this year.”

He highlighted what he described as misplaced priorities: “We have requested a hearing loop system for Tilehurst Community Centre — a permanent accessibility improvement that would benefit the one in six people in the UK who suffer from hearing impairment. We’ve been told there are cost pressures that prevent it. Yet there were no cost pressures when it came to funding the Mayor’s £920 flight to watch football in Germany last year.”

Council Tax rises continue

The budget approved by the Labour-controlled council includes a 4.99% Council Tax increase — the maximum permissible without a referendum — for the third consecutive year. For a typical Band C household, the Reading element of Council Tax will rise by around £94 per year.

Cllr Thompson noted that public support for the increases is weakening: “The budget engagement showed 50.5% of respondents now oppose the Council Tax increase — a significant shift from last year when 60% supported it.”

Future years unbalanced

Despite the reserve draw, the Medium Term Financial Strategy shows budget gaps of £1.996 million in 2027/28 and £207,000 in 2028/29 still to be found.

All three Liberal Democrat councillors voted against the budget.

Reading Lib Dems call for end to 12-hour A&E waits as corridor care crisis worsens under Labour

• NHS data shows 6,450 patients waiting 12 hours or more in the Royal Berkshire Hospital A&E in 2025.
• Liberal Democrats propose a legal guarantee that no one will wait more than 12 hours in A&E, backed by a £1.5bn plan for extra beds and social care.

Reading Liberal Democrats are calling for a £1.5bn plan to end 12-hour waits in A&E within a year. This comes as A&Es across the country are facing rocketing waits for patients in desperate need of care.

The new Liberal Democrat plan would introduce a new law to enshrine the right for patients to be seen in A&E within 12 hours, warning that “18 months of Labour failure” has worsened the NHS crisis left by the Conservatives. 

Liberal Democrat analysis of the latest NHS England data shows that 2025 is projected to see the worst level of 12-hour trolley waits in A&E ever recorded. Locally, a shocking 6,450 patients waited 12 hours in the Royal Berkshire Hospital A&E in 2025.

The Lib Dem plan would end 12-hour waits and hospital ‘corridor care’ within a year. 

• Making 6,000 extra hospital beds available to end corridor care within a year.
• Investing in 1,000 more staffed hospital beds.
• Extra investment in social care to reserve 1,600 “safety net” social care places each day, for hospitals to discharge into if they need to.
• Extra step-down care – freeing up 1,200 beds a day.
• Making more beds available in care homes and hospitals.

The proposal would be funded by cancelling the planned medicine price hike agreed with the Trump administration before Christmas, which is set to cost the NHS over £3bn a year despite minimal benefits for patients. 

Commenting, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Reading Borough Council, Councillor Anne Thompson, said: 

“For too long, people in Reading have suffered with degrading waits and treatment in hospital corridors. Our NHS staff are working so hard, but have been let down by those in power. It is a national emergency, and it is devastating our NHS – we need a real plan to fix it.

“Liberal Democrats are offering the bold solutions we need to free up our hospitals and end the A&E crisis once and for all. No government should tolerate this disaster, and ministers should be held legally accountable if they continue to fail in their duty to protect patients.”

At a time when police stations and front desks are disappearing, people want visible, trusted officers and a clear local point of contact. Labour already promised the public 13,000 more police officers, but instead, officer numbers have fallen – by June 2025, we had 4,000 fewer frontline officers than the year before. Crimes like shoplifting, bike theft, tool theft and more are going unchecked, leaving ordinary people to pay the price.

Liberal Democrats Councillor for Tilehurst, Meri O’Connell, said:

“Promises by press release are all well and good, but the Government must deliver. The former Conservative Government destroyed neighbourhood policing and left our communities to pay the price.

“Labour already promised the public 13,000 more police officers, but instead officer numbers have fallen – by June last year, we had 4,000 fewer frontline officers than the year before.

“It’s the public that pays the price – in the Thames Valley, rates of shoplifting have gone up 14%.

“If the Government is serious about restoring neighbourhood policing, it needs to step up, get this right, and get more officers back onto our streets.”

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