Maidstone expects to leave £13.9m of its £45.5m capital budget unspent. Archbishop's Palace, Earl Street and the leisure centre works all slip to 2027/28.
Maidstone Borough Council set aside £45.483m to build and repair things this year. Three months in, it had spent £5.415m.
Its own finance team now forecasts that £13.929m of that budget will not be spent by 31 March 2027.
Almost none of it is being cancelled. Nearly all of it is being pushed into 2027/28, project by project, for reasons the report sets out in a single page. That page is the most useful thing the council has published about what will and will not get built in Maidstone this year.
Which projects have slipped
The largest single line is money the council has simply decided not to use.
- £2.8m, corporate property acquisitions. “At this stage no acquisitions are planned.” £1.4m of it is being redirected to replace the cremators at the crematorium, a decision Cabinet took on 22 July.
- £2.069m, affordable and social housing. This is the former Royal Mail sorting office site. The pre-contract services agreement has been signed, but progress has been “slower than anticipated”.
- £1.579m, refurbishment of Maidstone House and The Link. The project “will commence shortly”, with some costs now falling in 2027/28.
- £1.296m, Archbishop’s Palace. The council is still letting the contract. Works are planned for early 2027.
- £1.244m, leisure provision. This covers the council’s building obligations at Maidstone Leisure Centre and Lockmeadow Health Club. “At this stage no expenditure is planned this year.”
- £843,000, Earl Street public realm improvements. Still in the development phase and “unlikely to commence this year”.
- £750,000, infrastructure delivery including new green spaces.
- £614,000, climate change and biodiversity projects. Some money has been spent, but “the full budget will not be utilised”.
- £490,000, Gypsy, Romany and Traveller site. Work is still going on to find a site.
One line runs the other way. The Garden Community budget is £405,000 over, because “additional project requirements have been identified”. That overspend is being funded by pulling money back from 2027/28.
Several smaller town centre schemes had spent nothing at all by 30 June: £250,000 for a new River Medway bridge, £226,000 for the flood barrier and bridges gyratory scheme, £200,000 for town centre public realm and greening, and £100,000 for Week Street reinstatements.
The £700,000 nobody budgeted for
The slippage has a financial upside, and the report says so plainly.
The council’s biggest single favourable variance for the year is £700,000 of extra interest and investment income. The stated reason is that “interest rates remain higher than forecast, and slippage within the capital programme means more cash is available to earn interest”.
In other words, not building things is earning the council money.
At the end of June it held £43.095m invested, at an average return of 4.12%, producing £464,000 of income in the quarter alone. Four £5m fixed-term deposits are loans to other councils: Basildon at 4.70%, Luton at 4.50%, Cornwall at 4.25% and Blackpool at 4.04%. On the other side of the ledger the council owes £84.074m in external borrowing, and took on no new debt in the quarter.
Day-to-day spending is close to level
Strip out the treasury figure and the picture is duller, which is what a council wants a budget report to be.
Net revenue expenditure at 30 June was £2.461m against a profiled budget of £3.647m, an underspend of £1.186m at the quarter. For the year as a whole the forecast is a £36,000 overspend on operating activities, against a net revenue budget of £27.377m. That is a rounding error on a budget that size.
Only one of the three policy advisory committees is forecast to end the year over: Planning and Healthier Stronger Communities, by £245,000.
Where planning is costing money
Three of the four significant variances under that committee sit in development management, and they broadly cancel out.
| Line | Forecast variance |
|---|---|
| Planning application income | £400,000 better than budget |
| Planning appeal costs | £300,000 worse |
| Advice on Heathlands and Land North of Marden | £120,000 worse |
The council is taking more in application fees than it expected. It is also paying for “several appeals on-going at present”, and the report warns those costs “are highly unpredictable”.
The £120,000 is for external advice on two planning performance agreements, the Heathlands garden village at Lenham Heath and Land North of Marden. The report says that money “will be reimbursed in due course”, which is how planning performance agreements work: the applicant funds the council’s costs of handling a very large application.
The fourth line under that committee is not planning at all. Lockmeadow Complex is £340,000 over, because of expenditure at the Lockmeadow Health Club that is the subject of a dilapidations claim against the previous tenant, plus rental income on another unit coming in under budget.
Four smaller variances worth knowing
- Recycling collection, £205,000 better than budget. Garden waste income is up, on a mix of higher volumes and the price rise.
- Rent allowances, £200,000 worse. An adjustment to last year’s housing benefit grant claim that was not spotted before the year-end close.
- Archbishop’s Palace running costs, £100,000 worse. An agreement for lease has been signed with a new tenant moving in next year, but the building costs more to run in the meantime.
- South Maidstone depot, £80,000 worse, on unbudgeted repairs and maintenance.
Reserves, and what you are paying
The council held £57.45m across its general fund balance and earmarked reserves on 1 April, of which £38.9m is already set aside for specific purposes. It expects to end the year on £60.87m.
Collection is running very slightly behind target. Council tax was 27.5% collected at the end of the first quarter against a target of 27.9%. Business rates were 30.7% against 31.0%.
What it means for you
If you were waiting on one of these schemes. Earl Street, the new green spaces, the leisure centre works and the Archbishop’s Palace refurbishment are all now expected to start later than this year’s budget assumed. The money stays in the capital programme, and the report says it will be rolled forward, but nothing in it commits the council to a start date.
If you use the crematorium. £1.4m of the unused property acquisition budget is paying for replacement cremators, agreed in July.
If you want to challenge any of it. The report was considered by the Climate Transition, Corporate and Environmental Services Policy Advisory Committee on Tuesday 1 September, and by the Planning and Healthier Stronger Communities committee on Wednesday 2 September. It goes to Cabinet on Wednesday 16 September for the final decision. To speak, contact the council on 01622 602899 or committee@maidstone.gov.uk by 4pm one clear working day before the meeting, saying which agenda item you want to speak on.
The papers are the 1st Quarter Finance Update Report and Appendix 1, the First Quarter Budget Report, both on the council’s committee site. The report was written by Paul Holland, senior finance manager, for Mark Green, director of finance and resources.
Related: Maidstone council tax bands and Maidstone planning applications.
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