Budget Sets Council Tax Rate at Third Lowest in the Country
Opposition claims rises in bills avoided by raising charges on other services
Hammersmith & Fulham Council has raised its portion of the bill by 4.99%
March 2, 2026
Hammersmith & Fulham Council has set its budget for the coming financial year at the first meeting in its refurbished town hall.
The borough rubber stamped the package in its new Civic Campus, approving proposals including a hike to its share of tax plus the social care precept of a combined 4.99 per cent.
Conservative opposition members queried the planned increases to fees and charges within the budget and attacked the Labour administration’s record on housing, with the group’s Leader, Cllr Jose Afonso, describing the condition of many homes a ‘disgrace’.
Council Leader Stephen Cowan told members in his opening salvo: “This budget will make this borough stronger, safer and kinder, and it will work for people we were elected to serve.”
Hammersmith and Fulham’s 2026/27 budget comes against the backdrop of a cut to its Government support following the Fair Funding Review.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) previously revealed how the council was expecting to receive £23.5 million less in grants and retained business rates for the coming year due to the assessment.
Despite that hefty hit the local authority still proposed a balanced budget for 2026/27 though with the planned hike to council tax and the social care precept.
The borough’s council tax rate remains the third lowest in the country for 2025/26.
For 2026/27, the council’s increases to tax and the social care precept by 4.99 per cent bringing in a further £4.4m.
This would take the annual rate for a Band D home to £1,009 before the Mayor of London’s precept is added.
Hammersmith and Fulham is one of several councils to be granted special dispensation by the Government to go above the 4.99 per cent ceiling for two years only, 2027/28 and 2028/29.
Total ‘savings’, a mixture of income and cuts, of £9.5m were proposed in budget papers, many of which relate to improving the efficiency of various services.
A lengthy list of planned investments for 2026/27 were similarly detailed, from school breakfast clubs to the council’s Law Enforcement Team (LET) and flagship free Home Care programme for older and disabled residents.
The draft budget worked its way through various committees before going to Full Council last Wednesday night (25 February) for approval.
Cllr Cowan opened by accusing the former Conservative administration of leaving the Labour group, which took power in 2014, a poor economic inheritance.
Since then, he said, the council had made £156m in savings and was praised last year in an independent peer review for its financial competence.
“We’re in government here in this borough to improve the lives and transform the life chances of all our residents,” he told the chamber.
“We’re here to improve our environment, protect our treasured biodiversity, and tackle climate change. We’re here to build the economy and make it work for everyone. We came into office to build a safe, stronger and kinder Hammersmith and Fulham.”
Cllr Cowan also attacked the Conservatives’ proposal to build a ‘military-style’ bridge next to Hammersmith Bridge, which they claim would cost £20m, far less than the £250m required to repair the existing Grade II*-listed crossing.
“This lot are playing the same game that the Conservatives have always played on Hammersmith Bridge. It’s to think you can mislead all of the people all of the time. It didn’t work for them last time, it won’t work for them this time, but it is insightful as to how they do accounts.”
Cllr Afonso raised the cut to Government support following the Fair Funding Review, which he said was being reduced “far more severely than expected”.
“When you strip away the rhetoric you find this is a council raising charges on everything it can think of,” he said. “Stripping support from the most vulnerable, and hoping nobody notices the black hole that is opening up beneath our feet.”
Among the fees and charges noted by Cllr Afonso was the introduction of a requirement for residents to get a licence to sell anything from their front garden, with the Opposition Leader quipping: “Those poor lemonade stands.”
“We are literally licensing people to sell things from their own front gardens and then we wonder why we don’t have a culture of entrepreneurship.”
Cllr Afonso also spoke on the council’s social housing record, highlighting a 2021 Ombudsman report which named it the worst local authority in England for damp and mould and a subsequent damning investigation published in 2024.
“This is one of the wealthiest boroughs in the country,” he said. “Yet under Labour control our social housing tenants, some of the most vulnerable people in our borough, have been left to live in conditions which are a disgrace. The answer lies in priorities.”
Cllr Rowan Ree, Cabinet Member for Finance and Reform, said he welcomed Cllr Afonso’s “late conversion to the anti-austerity agenda” though claimed it reeked of “rank hypocrisy” given the former Tory Government’s own cuts to local government.
Cllr Ree added that while the Conservative opposition had claimed they would reverse policies such as hiked parking charges they had not revealed what services would be slashed to pay for it.
He said: “Call it dodgy accounting, call it voodoo economics, whatever it is, the numbers just don’t add up. The residents of this borough, the drivers of this borough, can’t afford the cost of a kamikaze Conservative council.”
The budget was approved along party lines.
The Full Council meeting was Hammersmith and Fulham’s last before the elections on May 7.
The Civic Campus project on King Street, which as well as the town hall will include amenities from restaurants and work spaces to a new cinema, is expected to be fully complete by the summer.
Ben Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter