The Royal Borough of Greenwich is committed to supporting its communities. From caring for elderly residents to supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing, our goal is to maintain high quality services across the council.

That’s why we’re inviting residents to share their views on how we should allocate our budget for 2025-2026.

Each year, we spend over £332 million on a wide range of services – from helping children reach their full potential and supporting residents with additional health needs – to building brand new council homes and working to becoming a more environmentally friendly borough.

However, over a decade of underfunding by previous governments compounded by soaring demand for services have caused unprecedented challenges for councils across London. At the same time, there has been a sharp rise in the costs associated with providing all services due to inflation.

The council faces extraordinary financial pressure to meet urgent housing needs, with roughly 2,000 households currently in temporary housing. In a single night, our spending peaked at over £24,000 on emergency hotel rooms to ensure families have a roof over their heads. This is unsustainable.

A council spokesperson said: “Our council is well-managed, but we’re facing a combination of historic underfunding and escalating demand on our services.

“Our priority is to provide the best possible services for our communities, in any way we can. This creates stability for our residents, which has always been our goal, one that is more crucial than ever because councils across the country are feeling a strain unlike ever before, with some even going effectively bankrupt.

“Following the tough and sensible decisions that we’ve made to get a grip on our finances, we saved £33.7 million last year and are in a much better position than other councils. However, we’re still predicting a budget gap of at least £27million next year.

“Council services affect everyone in one way or another and we’re dedicated to ensuring residents, businesses, and partners stay informed and have their say about the council’s finances and current challenges. We will continue to engage with you on where we can make savings and how we can continue to support you.”

This year, we will continue putting funding where residents feel the impact the most, maintaining our mission to be an adaptive organisation, enabling us to navigate the increasing number of challenges while remaining financially sustainable.

Before any decision is made, we’d like to hear your views on how we should set the budget for the coming year.