Hampshire County Council 2025 budget consultation

Hampshire County Council has launched its most recent consultation on how to balance the budget

This is in readiness for Savings Plan to 2025 (SP25) due to be implemented in April 2025 . This is a Stage 1 consultation. This means that the County Council is testing potential savings options on the public to gauge their views.

However, It does not mean that the areas of potential savings contained the consultation are definite, nor, if it is decided that savings will be required in these areas, the final value of these .

Once this consultation has run its course and the feedback analysed, this will go to Cabinet to agree the final proposals for SP25. It is at this point that each area of the business would know the amount of savings, if any, it is required to make – so for example, in SP23, the target was £800,000.

The new £1.7m target represents the entire Hampshire County Council revenue budget on community transport services and about £800,000 of the spend on local bus (the other £1m spend is ring-fenced BSOG funding for bus services). However, as yet - this is not a done deal.

Hampshire County Council was in a similar position during 2015, 2017 and 2019 and yet bus and Community Transport services were still supported.

Your feedback was, and still is crucial

The reason for this was entirely down to the feedback from residents, and other concerned groups. Previous response to the consultation has previously been crucial and still remains just as important.

Some of you may remember a previous savings round where the entire Community Transport was proposed to be cut, as a direct result of the feedback that the sector provided, the savings target in this area went down to zero.

Similarly, the savings target for SP23 reduced from £1.5m to £800,000. However, It cannot promised that this will happen again, we all know that with each savings round it gets harder and harder but equally, the impact on passengers and residents gets deeper and deeper.

Your feedback on this consultation is crucial to the outcome of this exercise.

Whist its appreciated that this is not the news everyone wants to hear, many residents, groups and the Passenger Transport Team at the Council are also as disappointed. However, it needs to stressed that no decisions have yet been made. If as a result of this consultation, savings are required against the council’s spend on community transport and supported bus services, there will need to be a further, more detailed consultation, similar to the one a year ago.

Respond to help protect the local services at risk

Services that depend on funding from Hampshire County Council Include: the Number 7 bus service between - Aldershot, Fleet Hartley Wintney & Phoenix Green, as well as support for Community Transport services such 'Fleet Connect formally known as Fleet Link.

The consultation website includes an information leaflet about all the range of topics and services that HCC are suggesting to change. The Transport Services page is explained on Page 34.

The consultation relating to bus services can be found within….

• Section Three - page 9, Reducing services/ Changing services . Tick box answer to rate level of preference.
• Section Four - page 10, regarding Universal Services, which includes public community transport subsidies and grants. This is a chance to describe the impact that any cuts would have on residents.
• Section Five - page 11, regarding Universal Services. This provides space for any further comments about the proposed changes.

The consultation can be found on the Hampshire County Council website and will close on midnight on Sunday 23rd July.