Taxpayers face £10 rise in bills to pay for police
RESIDENTS in Macclesfield have learned how much extra the police and fire services will cost them in the next financial year.
There will be a Cheshire-wide increase of £10 a year on average to the police precept from April 2020 and the fire precept will rise by 1.99 per cent (£79.29 for a band D property).
Both charges are additional parts of the council tax bill, which itself is going up by a rate of 3.99 per cent.
Police and crime commissioner David Keane proposed the police precept increase, saying the burden of funding the force was shifting from the government to the taxpayer. It follows a public consultation where, Mr Keane said, two thirds of respondents agreed to an increase in the precept to invest in neighbourhood policing.
He says without precept increases in recent years, the force would be ‘way, way behind where we are now’.
There are now plans to give all of Cheshire’s 122 policing communities their own named police officer.
Cheshire Fire Authority has also consulted on the increase in its precept.
Members approved the authority’s proposed budget for 2020-21, including the precept rise, during a meeting on Wednesday, February 12. It will be an extra £1.55 per week for an average band D property.
Fire chiefs says it will maintain fire prevention, protection and emergency response services, in addition to covering costs such as inflation, fuel and equipment.
Councillor Nick Mannion, a Macclesfield representative on Cheshire’s fire authority said it was a ‘prudent’ budget.
He added he believes it was prepared ‘on the assumption that austerity is here for at least another 12 months’.