Council tax bills look set to rise by 4.99% this year after the corporate policy committee voted to recommend the increase to full council, writes Belinda Ryan.
The increase is the maximum Cheshire East Council can impose after the government this week refused its request to hike up bills by 9.99%.
If the 4.99% is agreed by full council at the budget meeting on February 26, this will see Cheshire East’s part of the bill rise to £1,882.04 for a Band D property.
Other precepts, such as the police, fire service and town and parish councils, will be on top of that.
Councillors clashed at today’s meeting with five Conservatives voting against recommending the 4.99% increase.
Cllr Chris O’Leary (Sutton, Con) said: “I think it’s welcome news that the government has refused the request to increase the council tax by 9.99% but it’s also the case that 4.99% is still double the rate of inflation.”
He said the increase would affect those on council tax benefit and the thousands of low earners in the borough disproportionately.
Deputy leader Michael Gorman (Wilmslow, Ind) said: “If you look at inflation over the last four years council tax has not kept pace with it by any means.”
He said compared with neighbouring councils, Cheshire East had a relatively low council tax.
“You can’t have good services when you don’t have enough money, so you’ve got to have a fair council tax to provide good services,” said the deputy leader.
He said Cheshire West and Chester had a higher council tax and because of that “they’ve got £15m a year more than us, [for core spending] per year every year”.
He added: “There seems to be collective amnesia in parts of this council about why we are here and that’s because the council between 2009 and 2019 [when it was under Conservative control] decided not to keep pace with inflation and decided to go for the easy option.”
Conservative group leader Janet Clowes reacted angrily to that.
She said: “The council tax freezes of 2011 to 2015, they were brought about as part of an election manifesto promise based on previous Labour government, particularly under Gordon Brown, where council taxes were raised excessively and there were no controls and they far exceeded inflationary rates.”
She added during that five-year period, the council was given compensatory grants.
Cllr Mark Goldsmith (Wilmslow, Ind) said: “Last year the Conservative government capped our council tax increase by 5% and inflation had touched 12%.
“That was the wrong decision then.
“They dodged it because of the election coming up and it did them no good at all.
“I’m disappointed we haven’t been able to recoup that this time either.”
He added the council couldn’t cut its spending any more and without the 9.99% increase it had asked the government for the only way was to borrow money “and that money comes with interest”.
“It will cost us about £20m in interest alone over the life of that borrowing,” said Cllr Goldsmith.
“That’s why it was wrong decision last year by the Conservatives to cap council tax, it’s the wrong decision [by the Labour government] now.”
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