Council tax will rise by 4.48%
Residents far from happy at increase
New fee passed in budget talks
An increase of almost five per cent in council tax has been met with anger from many people in West Lothian.
The rise is the highest allowed by the Scottish government but falls into line with what many other local authorities have decided to charge.
Locals took to the Courier Facebook page to say what they think of the rise.
pauline Ramsay said:“Are they having a laugh? WLC have cut their services to a bare minimum since 2019. The public areas are overgrown and dangerous in parts, street cleaning requests are constantly ignored too, making pathways slippy and dangerous.
“It’s a hit or a miss if you get your bin emptied and the potholes on the roads are ridiculous. Where’s all our money going to from our already steep council tax?”
Mhairi boyd said:“Cut out the salaries for fat cats and get people in to run the council that actually care about communities and environment and not the top line on their pay slips.”
Linda Moyes agreed saying:“They have a cheek. If they did the cleaning of the streets and the landscaping so that we can see what they are spending our money on it might be worth it. Instead of taking more money from us to cover their spending habits and shortfalls.”
Amy Nisbet, added:“The money we pay now isn’t going anywhere as it is and they want us to pay more?
“Roads are a mess, not enough houses for people, grass was a mess, but yeah, let’s give them more money to do goodness what.” However some people think the rise is fair. Valerie Anderson said:“It has happened because council tax wasn’t put up for years. We are not paying anywhere near as much as in England. It should never have been frozen.”
And Vikki Devlin added:“To be honest I actually thought it was going to go up more when it was released few weeks ago that the money councils were going to receive was less than they all thought.”
pat Telford said:“What part of the government having slashed council funding, the bulk of what they get is also ring-fenced for education, do people not understand?
“If the council doesn’t get a fair payment from government we all suffer. The increase may well stave off more service cuts, but we should give ourselves a shake and realise they can only work with what they have.”