Call to scrap plans for council tax rise (From The Northern Echo)

Call to scrap plans for council tax rise

3:06pm Tuesday 14th February 2012 in Redcar News

A COUNCIL has been asked to scrap plans for a 3.5 per cent council tax rise to protect residents from further financial suffering.

Glyn Nightingale, leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, is calling on the authority to accept the Government's offer of a 2.5 per cent grant to enable them to freeze the council tax bill.

The Ormesby councillor has written to the Labour leader of the council, George Dunning, to ask him to overturn the decision.

At December's meeting of the council, he said the Liberal Democrats put forward an amendment that would have meant a council tax freeze, but Labour voted this down.

He said: "Hard-working families are facing higher bills when their family budgets are under real strain.

"In the current climate, asking people to pay more is an unnecessary, politicallymotivated ploy that to local residents will not be welcome.

"This is so important I am writing to Councillor Dunning to ask him to reconsider."

He maintains that refusing the Government's offermeans the council will lose the area £1.4m - that's more than £10 for every person in the borough. At the same time, the 3.5 per cent increase will be carried forward into the future, placing an extra burden of £2m on residents.

And he said recent speeches by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, have hinted that the grant for a council tax freeze will be continued after 2012-13.

However, Coun Dunning said unless there was a guarantee that the grant would be for the full term of this Government, the council would not change its decision.

He said: "Local authorities cannot formulate budgets on strong hints and possibilities that are supposedly coming out of Eric Pickles' department.

"The letter that was received by chief executives of councils up and down the country made it clear that it was a one-year only deal.

"If we accepted it for next year and it wasn't available for the full term of Government, we would be losing more than £7m out of up coming budgets and we are already facing massive savings as it is.

"We would bemindful of reconsidering our decision if we were guaranteed the grant for the next few years, but until then we are unable to do so."