In May 2025, Reform UK won control of Lancashire County Council for the first time. One year on, here is some of what has changed at County Hall.
The lowest council tax rise in 12 years
Reform’s first budget set the 2026/27 council tax rise at 3.8 per cent, which the council says is the lowest increase in 12 years and well below the 4.99 per cent of each of the previous two years. You can read our fuller report here.
Councillors froze their own allowances
At Full Council on 16 October 2025, councillors voted 75 to 0, with two abstentions, to freeze their allowances at the previous year’s levels. That meant rejecting a 3.2 per cent increase that had been recommended by the council’s Independent Remuneration Panel. The council says the freeze saves £92,000.
Leader Stephen Atkinson said: “We made the decision to vote against increasing our allowances, which will save the authority £92,000. We believe this is the right thing to do given the current economic climate, and with many residents facing extra financial pressure.”
Opening up the council’s finances
As part of a review of the council’s finances, the Reform administration set out the scale of long-dated bonds bought under the previous Conservative administration between 2021 and 2022. The council’s treasury report shows around £380 million was tied up in two holdings: about £260 million in UK government bonds that do not mature until 2073, and about £120 million lent to the French energy company EDF in bonds that do not mature until 2114, almost 90 years away.
By 31 March 2025 those holdings were worth far less on paper than was paid for them, an unrealised reduction of around £280 million. At the budget in February 2026, Leader Stephen Atkinson said that selling the investments today could cost the council nearly £350 million.
It is important to be clear about what this means. These are paper valuations, not cash losses. The bonds are not being sold, and held to maturity they are due to pay out their face value. Reform’s point is about transparency, and about the wisdom of locking up so much of the council’s money for decades, in some cases into the next century.
Fixing the roads
Lancashire’s queue of outstanding road defects fell from 61,063 in September 2024 to 35,514 in September 2025, a 42 per cent reduction, backed by a record highways budget. There is more on that here.
Other changes at Full Council
In its first year the administration also won votes at Full Council to review the council’s non-statutory Net Zero commitments and to stop voluntary carbon reporting (October 2025), and to give priority to the Union, England, Lancashire, royal and military flags on council buildings (July 2025).
The year ahead
There is a great deal still to do, and Lancashire’s finances remain under real pressure. But year one shows the direction of travel: careful spending, more openness about the council’s money, and a focus on getting the basics right for residents.
