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Town Council’s above-inflation tax increase – again!

by robpayne on 11 February, 2019

Following last year’s rise in Weston Town Council’s portion of the council tax by a whopping 11%, there was hope for more restraint this year. But the Conservative-run authority in setting the budget for this year have once again forced through a rise in excess of inflation – this time at 3.3%.

Liberal Democrat town councillor for Weston Central, Robert Payne, is concerned with these significant rises. He said: “Council tax rises tend to hit the lowest paid working families the hardest, and the town council has a responsibility to ensure that any rise remains affordable. I do understand the financial difficulty all councils have been put into by central government, but we can’t go on simply passing the burden on to hard-pressed local people.” The Liberal Democrats were able to propose a much more modest rise of 0.91% without cutting any services to local people by targeting wasteful and unnecessary spending as well as pet projects of little benefit to the community. They also included within their proposals extra spending on street cleaning, targeting dog fouling in particular, and they supported increased spending on children’s play areas.

However, the Conservatives used their majority on the council to disregard any proposals or suggestions from other groups, and pushed through their budget.

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