Eastbourne Borough Council’s Conservative Opposition has responded to the latest independent report into the Council’s finances, warning that it confirms what many residents already feel — that services are being stripped back, standards are falling, and the town is paying the price for years of poor decisions.
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) report, published in March 2025, reveals a Council struggling with a structural deficit of £4 million and making day-to-day decisions just to stay afloat. The Council’s debt servicing costs now total over £7.2 million a year — more than 71% of its total Council Tax income.
According to CIPFA, this is “not sustainable.”
The report highlights the lack of a clear financial strategy, weak oversight of risky investments, and growing concern that the Council has still not taken its situation seriously enough. It warns that without urgent and credible action, the Council will have no choice but to further scale back local services to only their most basic legal minimum, at a time when public toilets have already been cut back, parks left overgrown and key facilities like the Sovereign Centre downgraded.
Leader of the Opposition, Councillor Robert Smart, said:
“This is the third major CIPFA report into Eastbourne Council’s finances, and it confirms what we’ve said all along, that we’re in this mess not because of bad luck or central government, but because of years of poor local leadership.
The Council’s debts have spiralled, reserves have been drained, and instead of facing up to the scale of the crisis, the Lib Dem administration has buried its head in the sand. Residents now face a future of higher Council Tax, disappearing services, and deteriorating infrastructure — all to pay for the mistakes of senior councillors.”
The Conservative Opposition also points out that although the CIPFA report was published in early March, it is only now coming to Cabinet in June, conveniently after the local elections.
They are calling for a credible and serious plan to restore financial stability to the Council — one that ensures no more money is wasted on political pet projects, and that puts core services first.
They also point to the impact residents are already seeing, including Eastbourne Council’s withdrawal from local grass cutting, £1 charges to use public toilets, and widespread service reductions across the town.
Eastbourne Borough Council remains the only local authority in England to have required government financial intervention in five of the last six years.
