What the council borrowed#
At 31 March 2026 Cornwall Council's gross external borrowing stood at £1,571.2m, according to the treasury outturn report taken to Cabinet on 17 June 2026. When the year began, the council's treasury team expected £1,508.1m; by the third quarter the forecast had risen to £1,536.7m. The year closed £63.1m above the original expectation.
The council's 2025/26 Statement of Accounts puts total borrowing at £1,578.061m, up from £1,382.732m a year earlier. The accounts measure borrowing including accrued interest, which is why their figure is slightly higher than the treasury team's. They are the unaudited accounts, issued on 29 June 2026; the audit has not yet been completed.
Where the council expects it to go#
The Treasury Management Strategy that Full Council approved on 24 February 2026, as part of the budget, projects the council's gross external borrowing at the end of each of the next five years. By 31 March 2031 it reaches £2,295.0m: £723.8m, or 46%, above the actual figure for March 2026.
Show the figures as a table
| 31 March | £m | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1,265.0 | Actual |
| 2025 | 1,374.7 | Actual |
| 2026 | 1,571.2 | Actual |
| 2027 | 1,737.6 | Council's projection |
| 2028 | 1,892.9 | Council's projection |
| 2029 | 2,077.0 | Council's projection |
| 2030 | 2,171.8 | Council's projection |
| 2031 | 2,295.0 | Council's projection |
Those projections were made in February 2026, before the 2025/26 outturn was known. The strategy expected borrowing of £1,548.8m at 31 March 2026; the actual figure was £1,571.2m. The strategy gives its own reason for the rise:
“Cornwall Council has a significant capital programme, which will require significant borrowing to support.”
What it costs to carry#
The council paid £72.790m in interest and similar charges in 2025/26, up from £69.579m the year before: about £199,000 a day. Its weighted average borrowing rate for the year was 3.84%.
At the year end, £730.8m (47%) of the council's borrowing was temporary borrowing, £508.8m of it from other local authorities. The outturn report explains that the council has been borrowing short-term to keep costs lower until longer-term rates come down. It adds that new borrowing arranged in March 2026 was more expensive after the conflict in the Middle East escalated on 28 February, and that:
“the conflict will result in higher interest costs than were budgeted for in 2026/27.”
The strategy also measures what borrowing costs against the council's budget: financing costs, including the statutory provision to repay debt and net of investment income, as a share of the General Fund's net revenue. The council set itself a limit of 9% from 2025/26. Its own estimates take the ratio close to that limit.
Scale 0–10%. The vertical line marks the 9% limit the council set. Source: Treasury Management Strategy 2026/27, p10.
Money lent on to the council's own companies#
Part of what the council borrows is lent on. At 31 March 2026 it had lent £162.609m to companies it owns:
- Treveth Holdings LLP: £148.052m
- Corserv Facilities Ltd: £13.000m
- Cornwall Housing Ltd: £1.207m
- Corserv Solutions Ltd: £0.350m
When a loan is repaid the money comes back to the council, so money lent is not the same as money spent.
What Full Council decided on 15 September#
On 15 September 2026 Full Council approved a £46.227m addition to the capital programme, funded, in the report's words, “either through grant or external contributions”. The report said:
“There has been no increase to the Council’s borrowing level.”
Read in context, that sentence is about the money added that day, which was not borrowed, and on that reading it is accurate. It is not a statement about the council's total debt, which the approved strategy projects to rise every year to 2031.
The same report's appendix shows the capital programme remaining from 2026/27 onwards at £1,812.850m, of which £893.352m is to be funded by prudential borrowing. That is not the same figure as the rise in debt: borrowing that funds capital spending is offset over time by repayments and by loans the council makes and is repaid. The February projection above is the council's own estimate of where total borrowing goes.
On the record#
When Full Council set the budget on 24 February 2026, the minutes record:
“Concern was raised about capital debt levels and interest costs. It was advised that options to reduce debt were being explored.”
The live counter on the Cornwall debt clock tracks the same borrowing between the council's year-end figures.
What to watch#
Three things will show whether the council's own projection is holding. What changes in interest rates, the schools deficit and the council's lender-option loans could cost is worked through in part two: the risks in the borrowing plan. The council's own figures each quarter are tracked on Cornwall Council's finances, quarter by quarter.
- The audited 2025/26 accounts. The figures from the Statement of Accounts on this page are from the unaudited version issued on 29 June 2026. This page and the debt clock will be updated when the audited accounts are published.
- The next Treasury Management Strategy. The current strategy, and its projection to 2031, was approved as part of the budget in February 2026. The next one will show whether that projection has moved, and in which direction.
- The financing-cost ratio against the 9% limit. The council's own estimates peak at 8.7%. The treasury forecasts the council revises during the year, like the third-quarter forecast cited above, are where any movement towards the limit would first appear.
Sources and method#
This page is built entirely from Cornwall Council’s own published papers. Every source was read on 27 September 2026, and every figure was checked against the page of the document given below.
| Source | Detail |
|---|---|
| Capital Programme Update — report to Full Council, 15 September 2026 | Recommendation, paragraphs 2.4–2.5 and 6.1 |
| Capital Programme Update — Appendix 1, Summary Capital Programme | Revised Capital Programme table: programme expenditure and funding |
| Full Council, 15 September 2026 — agenda | Item 9, Capital Programme Update |
| Cornwall Council Statement of Accounts 2025/26 (unaudited) | Balance Sheet (PDF p22); Note 12, interest payable (p66); Note 15, financial instruments (p72); loans to group companies (p140) |
| Treasury Management Strategy 2026/27 — Appendix 5 to the budget, Full Council 24 February 2026 | Capital Financing Requirement (p7); ratio of financing costs to net revenue stream (p10); current portfolio position (p18); borrowing strategy (p24) |
| Full Council, 24 February 2026 — agenda and minutes | Budget item; minutes record the concern raised about debt levels |
| Treasury Strategy 2025/26 — Out-turn Report (Appendix 3 to the Council Performance Report 2025/26 Q4), Cabinet 17 June 2026 | Executive summary (p3–4); borrowing position (p7); portfolio mix (p12) |
| Cabinet, 17 June 2026 — agenda | Council Performance Report 2025/26 (Q4) |
Corrections and right of reply
This report draws entirely on Cornwall Council's own published papers. The council is welcome to respond to any point in it, and this page will be corrected or updated with any comment it provides. Contact us.