Hampshire residents will see their council tax bills rise by 4.99 percent from April 2026 after councillors approved the increase at a marathon six-hour meeting.

Following the decision at full council on Thursday, February 26, the Conservative-run authority agreed the increase, meaning a Band D household will pay £1,690.11 in 2026/27 — an increase of £1.54 per week compared with last year.

Conservative leader Nick Adams-King described the budget as “prudent”, “innovative” and “responsive”.

“It provides you with solutions. It shows you how we are innovating and how we are managing things better.

“This budget protects services — the services that protect people’s lives. We are transforming the way we work as an organisation, keeping our debt low, living within our means, proactively managing our assets and sweating them to make the most of them.

“We are providing the services that our residents want and expect.”

However, the Liberal Democrat group was sharply critical of the plans. Its leader, Keith House, said the proposals lacked “solutions, innovation and hope”.

“Again, we find ourselves voting on the largest ever council tax increase in Hampshire’s history. It’s the third year running, and it really has just come down to this.”

He argued that the council’s move towards delivering services at a “statutory minimum” level had created a “culture of no” within the organisation.

“We need to create a ‘yes’ culture rather than a ‘no’ culture. We do fantastic work here, but this is a tough budget. Savings targets are getting harder to achieve, and promises made in the past are being set aside.”

The Liberal Democrats stopped short of voting against the budget but said they could not support it.

“We are trapped in a position that the Conservative Party has left us — from a Conservative administration to Conservative MPs for Hampshire, and now this increasingly tired Conservative administration that has long run out of ideas on getting this council working again.

“It is now time for a change. Mostly, we need to start listening, often to the simple things.”

Speaking for the Independent group, Cllr Andy Tree said councillors faced an “impossible task” in prioritising services with limited funds.

“It is impossible to rank services from vital to highly desirable and come out with a budget that Hampshire residents truly deserve.”

Regarding the council tax increase, he said it would not lead to “a greater level of services that would be protecting vulnerable people”.

“To put it bluntly, we are asking everyone to pay more for less.”

Labour’s Kim Taylor warned that the budgets are “financially fragile” and that the council has reached a stage where spending is largely demand-led and it has no real power to change that.

“Baking our own cake is now impossible.”

She raised the possibility of a Section 114 notice — effectively a declaration that a council cannot balance its budget — suggesting members should not view it purely as a mark of failure

“We need to change our attitude towards this and perhaps even embrace this as a potential strategy.

“This is not about failure or incompetence. We’ve simply been overtaken by external events, and like all good cooks, it is time to accept the recipe is flawed. We’ve run out of ingredients. The oven has broken down. There is no more cake.”

She described the budget proposals as “the least worst option” and a pragmatic response to difficult circumstances.

Responding to the criticism, Cllr Adams-King said opposition contributions were just “slogans and not solutions”.

“I have always said we will be collegiate and collaborative. But if we don’t get anything other than a suggestion that we should spend more money that we don’t have, that doesn’t make sense to me.”

Alongside the revenue budget, the council’s £971 million capital programme for 2026/27 to 2028/29 was also approved.