Preparedness for when

happydays89

GreyQueen wrote: »

Baffled. You don't have water rates in Scotland? I know it rains a lot (lived there for 5 years) but no one charges Joe Public to deliver water to their homes and remove sewage?!

I live in Aberdeenshire and we roughly pay £1 a day for water and sewerage services.

GreyQueen

happydays89 wrote: »

I live in Aberdeenshire and we roughly pay £1 a day for water and sewerage services.

I'm good; my metered supply (inc sewage) works out at 25p daily. If I wasn't on a meter it would be upwards of £500 per annum.

craigyw, council tax in the mainland parts of the UK varies considerably. My tiny 1 bedroom flat in the city is Band A which is just over £1k per annum but reduced by 25% because I'm the only adult. Takes one month of my lowly salary each year to pay the bliddy thing.

Our council tax trainer explained that council tax is the unholy offspring of the rates and the community charge (aka poll tax). Half of the council tax is based on the property, half is based on the assumption that the home has two adults in it. Which is why the single occupancy discount is 25% (half of the person-half of the calculation, so to speak).

It's riddled with inconsistancies. My 240 sq ft flat costs the same in council tax as my parents' 3 bed, 2 bathroom house in another council area across the county.

Council tax pays for education, social services, adopted highways, street sweeping, street lighting, surface water drainage, parking enforcement of signs and lines (speeding is the police), domestic rubbish and recycling collection, Blue Badges, bus passes for pensioners and students and some of the eligible disabled, emptying the street bins and the dog poo bins, supplying life rings along the river, maintenance of parks, allotments, castles, musems, city walls, street trees, footpaths, bike paths, libraries, some civic entertainments such as festivals and other back office things to tedious to enumerate.

Some of the council tax goes to the police and the fire brigade. Oh and CCTV, street furniture, picking up fly-tipped carp that lazy beggars leave about the place, dog wardens, licensing food selling premises (and prosecuting offenders when you've spend 3 days talking to gawd on the great white telephone as result of a mucky meal). Oh, and licensing street collections, peddlars, piercing and tattooing studios (so you hopefully don't get a disease along with your body mods). Plus enforcing a raft of environmental health legislation. And planning so your neighbour can't get away with building that 3 story extension looking into your garden, or turn his gaff into a house of multiple occupations and send your neighbourhood down the toilet.

We license road opening (digging up the highway) and road closures, things like scaffolding permits and cherry-pickers where they get in the way of the public, licensed premises, etc etc.

And weird stuff like picking up dead animals (pets and wildlife) from the streets and rivers, plus picking up parts of dead animals from the streets and parks (students now back in town, happens every year).

Your LA (at least my English LA) will not catch snakes for you nor hunt foxes in your garden. We won't offer diagnostic services for insect bites on your person. nor will we have an expert on hand to identify random insects found in your home and toted into our offices. We can't do anything about the tone-deaf buskers, even the ones who play just one tune outside your shop or office for 9 hours each day and are slowly driving you insane.............

We will be sweeping up the leaves again this autumn, too. And there may even be some tasteful civic Xmas decs, if we're spared.

Memory_Girl

Part of the reason is that "Scottish Water" is , well still Scottish - a nationalised beastie.

Mind you - as you know one thing we are not short of is the wet stuff - and I don't mean whisky.

MG

Butterfly_Brain

happydays89 wrote: »

I live in Aberdeenshire and we roughly pay £1 a day for water and sewerage services.

We pay £2.00 a day here and I believe that it is nearer £3 a day in coastal areas:eek:

jk0

Anyone seen this? PMSL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6vDzf-wSbk

Frugalsod

Memory_Girl wrote: »

Part of the reason is that "Scottish Water" is , well still Scottish - a nationalised beastie.

Mind you - as you know one thing we are not short of is the wet stuff - and I don't mean whisky.

MG

I wonder how many Scots would like to have a Whiskey tap in their kitchen as well? Free of course all as part of the rates. :beer:

GreyQueen

Frugalsod wrote: »

I wonder how many Scots would like to have a Whiskey tap in their kitchen as well? Free of course all as part of the rates. :beer:

Hey, I'd like a cider tap in my kitchen, it could add greatly to the gaiety of nations. As an Englishwumman, I feel that cider is my national drink and probably even a birthright, and definately ought to be provided at a heavily-subsided rate. After a hard day at the office, I could use a cooling glass of nectar some days. Not atypical convo colleague-to-colleague; they found a dead WHAT on Such-and-Such Street?!

RL is freakin' weird. If you tried to put some RL stuff into a work of fiction, an editor would prolly have a hissy fit and strike it out as unbelievable. I found a severed pig's head in the park t'other year, sitting pertly in the middle of the footpath.

mardatha

I think we pay a small sum in the council tax for sewage disposal Craigy. I cannot abide whisky lol neither the taste nor the smell of the bloody stuff
Wondering if this is going to be bad winter..

DawnW

GreyQueen wrote: »

We will be sweeping up the leaves again this autumn, too. And there may even be some tasteful civic Xmas decs, if we're spared.

A former colleague of mine has a relative who works in a LA call centre. This lady is bracing herself for the usual annual complaints about falling leaves. It was the one who crossly informed her that they 'pay their council tax and it is simply not good enough, and what is more, it happens every year!' that had her and her colleagues falling about :rotfl:

jk0

DawnW wrote: »

A former colleague of mine has a relative who works in a LA call centre. This lady is bracing herself for the usual annual complaints about falling leaves. It was the one who crossly informed her that they 'pay their council tax and it is simply not good enough, and what is more, it happens every year!' that had her and her colleagues falling about :rotfl:

For a minute there, I was thinking you meant Los Angeles.