Borrowing by council set to rise by £95m

AND COULD HIT £1BN BY 2028

- WILLIAM TELFORD

THE amount of cash borrowed by Plymouth City Council is set to leap by £95m next year and is predicted to be close to £1bn by 2028. As the council prepares to set its budget for 2025/26, papers presented to the council's budget scrutiny committee showed external borrowing will leap from £742m in 2024/25 to £837m next year.

And the figure is expected to get even higher over the following two years, rising to £918m in 2026/27 and £961m in 2027/28. Total debt is predicted to be higher, at £1.133bn in 2026/27, for instance, adding £215m from PFI liabilities and leases.

The council currently has a practical ceiling on its borrowing of £1.054bn, but the absolute maximum amount of borrowing that can be approved is £1.104bn.