£4.7 billion: the total combined debt of West Yorkshire’s metropolitan councils

Analysis shows that Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield councils have big financial hurdles to overcome.

The total debt for metropolitan local authorities in West Yorkshire at the end of Q4 2024/25 was £4.7 billion (£2,640,673,000), according to analysis by the BBC Data Unit. The unit found that all UK councils owed £122.2 billion, a 7% increase on the previous year.

Leeds Council, which was second overall out of 381 local authorities (Birmingham Council topped the table), had a debt of £2,640,673,000, followed by Kirklees Council at number 39 with £772,947,000, Bradford Council at 48 with £726,197,000, Wakefield Council at 113 with £380,936,000 and Calderdale Council at 217 with £147,616,000.

Bradford Council’s debt at the end of Q4 2024/25 represented a massive 22.27% rise compared to the total debt recorded at the end of Q4 2023/24 (£593,923,000). It was the highest increase among its metropolitan neighbours, who all sit as members of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Wakefield has the second highest increase in debt (15.07%), followed by Calderdale Council (12.09%), Kirklees Council (9.90%) and Leeds Council (4%), with a difference of £101,100,000.

Leeds Council response

A spokesperson for Leeds Council told the BBC Data Unit that the fact it was the second largest local authority in the UK (Birmingham again ahead of it) had to be factored into the analysis of the size of the council’s debt.

“The overall level of the council’s borrowing is also comparable with many other authorities and our overall level of debt is consistent with the size of Leeds City Council’s asset base,” the spokesperson continued.

“Borrowing enables the council to invest in assets and services, continue to operate effectively and support upcoming major investment programmes. The cost associated with this borrowing is affordable and can be managed within the council’s approved budget for 2025/26 and in line with our capital strategy.”

Calderdale Council response

Silvia Dacre, cabinet member for resources at Calderdale Council, told The Ilkley Journal via email that the level of borrowing at the local authority was “relatively low compared to other similar councils”.

“We are proud of our record of robust financial management during some incredibly challenging financial times,” she added. “The council’s revenue budget is for day-to-day operational service delivery, but we also need to ensure assets that we are responsible for and use for service delivery have the right level of investment.

“This investment is part of our capital budget, which is funded from government grants, receipts from sale of assets and borrowing from the Public Works Loans Board.”

Bradford Council response

A spokesperson for Bradford Council described the escalating debt levels since 2010 as “sobering” in an email to The Ilkley Journal, explaining that the local authority’s increase in debt was because it had been granted exceptional financial support (which is effectively a loan).

“It’s interesting to see that per head of population we are still below average nationally which demonstrates what a challenging time this is for all local authorities,” the spokesperson went on to say.

“We have a robust plan to put the council onto a sound financial footing in the future. This means that our drive to reduce the council’s costs while managing the increasing demand for services will be unrelenting.”

Wakefield Council response

While welcoming the opportunity to respond to the BBC Data Unit’s work, Wakefield Council, whose updated financial forecast in October 2024 revealed a budget gap of £88 million over the next five years, replied to The Ilkley Journal by saying that it wouldn’t be making a comment.

Kirklees Council response

A short email exchange with Kirklees Council, which revealed in February 2024 that it was able to avoid issuing a Section 114 notice (this would have effectively declared it bankrupt), resulted in our last two emails asking what the council had to say about its debt going unanswered.

Conservative cuts

In a press release responding to council borrowing, Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, an independent, not-for-profit membership organisation, said that the high level of council debts has its origins with the beginning of 14-years of Conservative government.

“In 2010, government funding for local government reduced dramatically and councils were encouraged to use their own resources and ingenuity to raise money themselves,” he explained.

“As a result, many councils borrowed to invest in commercial property and new developments. For a good number, these have been successful ventures, but since then, most councils have carried fairly high debt levels, with a small number carrying very high levels. Increasingly, debt has been taken on as a way to make up for gaps in the capital budget to fund routine maintenance and essential improvements.”

This line of thought has, in part, been echoed by Bradford Council’s leadership. At the start of the year, for instance, as the executive gathered to discuss the medium-term financial strategy report, Susan Hinchcliffe, the leader of Bradford Council, said that 14 years of funding reductions had left the local authority in “an unsustainable financial position”.

The same line has been put forward by Wakefield Council, too. Jack Hemingway deputy leader of the local authority, said back in October 2024 that while “strong financial management has helped” them “navigate over a decade of austerity”, “14 years of crippling underfunding” had “significantly damaged” its ability “to deal with the other financial pressures we now face”.

Likewise, Kirklees Council has pointed the blame for its financial situation at the now former Conservative government’s policy of cuts. In February 2025, Carole Pattison, leader of the local authority, said that their budget for the year was “a sign that we are starting to turn a corner after too many difficult years for local authorities across the country”. She added: “Our proposals fix the foundations of our budget after years of austerity, but this budget looks to the future too."

Calderdale Council, too, has criticised both the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition and subsequent Conservative governments for forcing it to make massive, damaging savings “which now amount to over £130 million per year compared with the services we were providing in 2010”, as Jane Scullion, leader of the local authority outlined earlier this year.

A 2024 piece by the Financial Times looking at the legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule, observed that “local councils have absorbed real-terms spending cuts of nearly 20% per head since 2010”.

“The result has been an explosion of potholes, poorly maintained parks, the closure of libraries, youth clubs and public toilets and chronically overstretched housing and children’s mental health services,” the article noted.

In a post for Conservative Home in 2023 titled “In defence of austerity”, the former Conservative MP David Gauke said that the 2010 Conservative chancellor, George Osborbe, took “decisive action” when he announced an emergency budget to “accelerate the pace of fiscal consolidation”.

“The markets’ attention moved elsewhere (to the eurozone) and interest rates remained low,” he continued. “The fact that there was no market turmoil for the UK in this period does not mean that the risk did not exist but, instead, that the fiscal strategy had succeeded in meeting the objective of avoiding a loss of confidence … I would argue that the 2010 plans were a reasonable and prudent assessment at the time.”