Borough tax levy set to go up £5

HOUSEHOLDERS can expect a council tax rise on the borough precept of £5 again for this financial year.

The increase, a little over 5%, was introduced along with the brown bin charge last April by the newly elected Conservative administration.

The fiver is a representative figure, based on the ‘average’ council tax charge on a Band D property.

Of that around 71p will be the Hinckley Area Committee proportion. Parish councils set their own element of the levy, which will also include charges from Leicestershire County Council, the police and the fire brigade.

The county council has already warned of a 4% increase over the next four years with half of that ringfenced to help bolster adult social care services, while Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Lord Willy Bach has said a 2% increase is likely over the next four years also.

Leader of Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, Mike Hall, said they had planned for the regular increase of £5 a year in the Medium Term Financial Strategy.

He added: “Unless we can get a massive increase in how much of the business rates income we retain then it looks like the £5 increase will remain for 2018/19 also.

“The charge works out at around £100,000 a year increase which really only covers the rise in salary costs.

“Overall the amount the borough gets from council tax just about covers the cost of refuse collections. We get just over £3 million and the waste service costs around £4 million. Everything else is funded from other services.

“We don’t have any ambition to change our proportion of the levy, if there are budget constraints, if we can control these with a third through savings, a third through taxpayers and a third from other income then that is fair to everyone and offers a balance.”