At last night’s Council meeting we agreed to increase council tax by just £4.69 for the whole year, for a Band D property. This is an increase of around 9 pence a week and gives a Band D Council Tax level of £193.62. This is the lowest increase for 10 years made despite receiving th fourth lowest grant settlement from central government (which increased by just 0.5% compared to the 4% average) and reflects among other things a £905,000 saving in staff costs, all achieved without any redundancies.
Front line services will be unaffected and in fact over the past year (to quote Chairman of Resources, Cllr Fisher) "weekly recycling has increased to over 30% and we have kept the weekly back door waste collection service. We have reduced the number of households living in temporary accommodation and through the Planning Core Strategy protected our Green Belt and won an above average 74% of appeals. We continue to provide shoppers free parking to support local businesses. In the words of the Audit Commission ‘we have made savings and improved services’.
