Council tax could rise by 3 per cent

COUNCIL tax for Dorset County Council residents could rise by nearly three per cent in April.

Band D householders in towns including Blandord, Christchurch, Swanage and Wimborne could each pay an extra £33.75 a year if proposals for a 2.97 per cent tax rise are approved at a meeting of all councillors in February.

The authority will also receive an extra 7.1 per cent on its formula grant from central government – boosting council coffers by some £50.75 million, and savings of £4 million are expected from the “fit for the future” efficiency programme.

But cabinet members complained at a recent meeting that Dorset is still set to receive the lowest government settlement per head of population of any shire county.

The county’s taxpayers also contribute the highest proportion of the council’s grant entitlement to a national funding pool – some 11 per cent – the meeting heard.

The authority faces a “significant cash shortfall” in 2011/12 and 2012/13, and budgets for all departments are set to be slashed by one per cent from April.

The £3 million set to be generated by the tax hike and budget cuts has been earmarked for additional social workers for children, fostering and adoption work and services to protect vulnerable adults.

Millions of pounds remain locked in failed Icelandic banks. Some £15 million is still tied up with Landsbanki, while only £2.1 million of the council’s £13.1 million investment has been recovered from Heritable.

Comments(10)

tt52 says...
8:07pm Tue 29 Dec 09

Here we go, Christmas has only just gone and the money grabbers are out in force, 3 percent rise when inflation is hovering at 1.5 percent and most wage rises are around 2 percent.
All the money waster on the surf reef and the upcoming Christchurch libary and they still want more.
To all councils in this country, budget like the rest of the population and spend within your means you money grabbing vultures.

free wessex says...
10:21pm Tue 29 Dec 09

They want more money yet we are told less Police to be had in Dorset!!
PATHETIC!

ferret38 says...
12:05am Wed 30 Dec 09

I dont pay council tax . Cant you refuse to pay any rise in what you pay at the moment ?

rayc says...
12:16am Wed 30 Dec 09

ferret38 wrote:
I dont pay council tax . Cant you refuse to pay any rise in what you pay at the moment ?
That is the route to a prison sentence.
Incedentally in response to free wessex comment re the Police do not think that the Dorset Police part of the tax will rise by only 3%, it is rumoured to be 4.9% just to continue todays standard of service.

ferret38 says...
12:21am Wed 30 Dec 09

rayc wrote:
ferret38 wrote:
I dont pay council tax . Cant you refuse to pay any rise in what you pay at the moment ?
That is the route to a prison sentence.
Incedentally in response to free wessex comment re the Police do not think that the Dorset Police part of the tax will rise by only 3%, it is rumoured to be 4.9% just to continue todays standard of service.
Well there all corupt so are some of us ! Sod em ..

golden mouldie says...
2:49am Wed 30 Dec 09

I wonder how much of that is due to the councillors pay rise?

MJD says...
6:43am Wed 30 Dec 09

Just maybe Poole Conservative council will take on board what the Liberal Democrats did when they ran the Poole Council years ago and re-framed from taking a pay rise and the staff followed suit. Thats what you call leadership. If i remember correctly two Conservative councillors this year got suspended over this years council tax, as they would not go with the flow.

tt52 says...
4:59pm Wed 30 Dec 09

rayc, Wimborne says...
12:16am Wed 30 Dec 09

Incidentally in response to free wessex comment re the Police do not think that the Dorset Police part of the tax will rise by only 3%, it is rumoured to be 4.9% just to continue todays standard of service.

What standard of service might that be then, which ever way you look at it there are more police driving around in high performance cars than there are on the beat, their budget could be cut by not sitting in cars all day.
4.9% rise for a service that is having dwindling detection rates seems a waste of money to me.
The state this country is in at the moment council tax rises should be pegged at around 2% as should the police portion.
If every man, woman and child in this country is feeling the pinch at the moment and have to budget down then so should government departments.
Any rises above inflation will just lead to more high wage claims and we will never see the end to this ressession.
Concils should manage their money better, i notice that most councils have thousands of pounds of our money stuck in icelandic banks, thats their fault not ours but they want us to pay for their mistakes, enough is enough, we should all tell them to get stuffed.

bigjohn says...
5:07pm Wed 30 Dec 09

Why doesn't this person pay council tax? It is because of this type of person that the rest of us must pay more.

inyerpocket says...
7:24pm Wed 30 Dec 09

Got to keep up the free parking for the elitist no marks, and re-fill their ill gotten pensions

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