Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care · Reform UK

Tom Pickup

Your councillor for Padiham & Burnley West

I was Lead Member for Finance and Resources in 2025/26, the year the council's forecast overspend fell from £27.9 million to £2.99 million.¹ The 2026/27 budget set a 3.80% council tax rise, the lowest since 2015/16.² ³ Every figure on this site traces to a document you can open yourself.

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Elected 2025. More about me

Lowest council tax rise since 2015/16: 3.80%³
2025/26 overspend, forecast to outturn: £27.9M→£2.99M¹
Reform UK seats at LCC, September 2026: 51/84⁴

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Public spending, housing, health and policing in Burnley, Padiham and Lancashire, each piece with its sources.

Reporting on Lancashire? Method, data and contact routes for journalists.

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Council spending, population, elections and asylum data. Four open sites, every figure traced to its source.

Featured investigation

Planning & energy

Scout Moor II Is Cut to 12 Turbines. The Area That Could See Both Barely Shrinks

Scout Moor II is down to 12 turbines, and the applicant's own map of both wind farms is now public. I was wrong to say no assessment existed. The area that could see both is barely smaller.

Published 4 October 2026 · Analysis by Tom Pickup. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

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The council's money, in three numbers

Reform took control of Lancashire County Council in May 2025. Two figures show its first full year; the third is what selling the council's bonds would cost. Each traces to a published council document.

3.80%

Lowest council tax rise since 2015/16

Every county council budget from 2016/17 to 2025/26 raised council tax by 3.99% or more, peaking at 5.99% in 2018/19. The 2026/27 budget set 3.80%.² ³

2025/26: 4.99%

£27.9M → £2.99M

Overspend nearly eliminated

At the first quarter of 2025/26 the council forecast a £27.9 million overspend. The year closed £2.99 million over on a £1.24 billion budget: an 89% reduction, and 0.24% off balance.¹

Quarter 1 forecast: £27.9M overspend

£350M

The cost of selling the bonds

The council has £519M invested in government and commercial bonds.⁵ Its 2026/27 treasury strategy says an immediate sale of all of them would realise a loss of some £350M.⁶

Treasury Management Strategy 2026/27, para 29

Lancashire County Council

Savings agreed, savings missed

A savings plan is a promise made in a budget. This is the share that actually landed.

Savings Delivery Rate

2025/26 98%

2024/25 48%

2025/26: savings delivered, including mitigations where the original saving was delayed (80% delivered on a lasting basis). 2024/25: savings delivered against the original budget; the report gives no figure including mitigations.

Sources⁷ ⁸

Local Government Reorganisation

Lancashire is being redrawn

On 16 July 2026 the government decided Lancashire's 15 councils would be replaced by four new unitary authorities from April 2028. The programme was paused for review on 7 September 2026. I've built an interactive model of what each one would be: who it merges, the budget it would run and how its places compare. Every figure sourced; populations are from the 2021 Census.

15→4Councils replaced

Apr 2028Planned start, now paused

Pennine Lancashire 498,255 5 councils merged · incl. Burnley North Lancashire 352,338 3 councils merged South Lancashire 346,197 3 councils merged Fylde Coast 334,360 3 councils merged

Explore the interactive model

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