More than £4 million could be overspent by Bracknell Forest Council this year – with some “difficult choices” ahead – according to a warning from a top council boss.

Extra pressures on social services and housing, coupled with a drop in income, have led the council into a “very difficult position,” the council’s deputy chief executive said.

Stuart McKellar told councillors the prediction was “the biggest potential overspend that this council has faced, so it’s a really, really unusual and challenging position.”

Mr McKellar said the prediction is based on what council departments already expect to overspend, coupled with the potential costs of growing risks and issues they face.

It means that by the end of the financial year, the council expects to spend anywhere between £2.25 million and £4 million more than it had budgeted for.

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Mr McKellar said some of the biggest areas of concern were in social services and housing.

He said: “Typically we face pressures on the demand-led services – children’s and adult social care, that’s quite common. This year we are also seeing pressures on our housing services, with increased numbers of people in homelessness accommodation.”

On top of that, Mr McKellar said the council’s income from sources such as payments by developers as part of planning agreements, and money levied to enforce planning conditions, had fallen.

He said: “Planning income is falling through the floor. Because the economy is not as buoyant as it was, developers are not bringing through as many schemes. Development control income is affected similarly because there’s not as much work going on on the ground.”

Mr McKellar made the revelation at a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission, which is a committee of councillors who scrutinise the council’s performance and decisions.

Councillor Georgia Pickering asked what council bosses are doing to stop the overspend from growing even larger.

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Mr McKellar said he was getting weekly updates from areas under the highest pressure and would be looking at the budgets of every council department.

He also said that every council in Berkshire was facing similar financial troubles – and that some councils in Britain had already declared bankruptcy.

He said: “What we’re seeing in Bracknell Forest is exactly the same as being faced by all our neighbours in Berkshire. West Berkshire council have just managed to bring their predicted overspend down to under £7 million and they’re not a much bigger organisation than we are.”

Mr McKellar added that, while the council was “not anywhere near” bankruptcy, “there may well be some quite difficult choices to make.”