MSE News: Households facing sharp rise in council tax bills over next two years

CIS

dori2o wrote: »

I dont have an issue with raising CT, but only if the additional money received is actually visible in terms of improved services. My fear is that despite increased CT nobody would benefit in terms of better service.

In the past 3 years weve seen local municipal 'tips' have closed leaving 1 central site which is a pain to get to especially if you dont drive.

Charges introduced to large item collections.

2 weekly then 3 weekly bin collections which has in a short space of time seen an increase in fly tipping, especially as the refuse staff have now been instructed to leave any bin where the.lid is not fully closed.

Reduced road maintenance, cuts to road sweeping (in the truck), abolished local street sweepers, reduced drain clearing, changes to pot hole policy meaning fewer holes filled and with cheaper materials which degrade quicker.

Cuts to social services and sheltered accomodation.

However the council has paid out £35M in refurbishment costs for the old town hall and gifted the building (no fees/rent) to a multi-national, billion dollar cinema company for 10 years.

So, the likelyhood of seeing improvements to services even with higher council tax is extremely unlikely.

The reason you don't see any improvements in service is that although a council may raise a £1 million or so on increasing council tax they're also being cut by millions of £s in central government cuts at the same point. The next result is that it looks bad on councils for raising council tax but the cuts they are receiving in government funds are the next cause.

There was a time when they probably were given too much money and some did get carried away with the spending but the budget cuts are now down to the point where many are barely able to run the service they are legally required to provide - you cannot force a legal duty on someone and then not provide them the means of paying for it.