Charging us more for less is a real kick in the teeth
LANCASHIRE County Council has voted to put council tax up by just under 4% – an absolute kick in the teeth to the hard- working taxpayers of Lancashire.
As we emerge, hopefully, from a pandemic which has turned lives upside down across the area, we are now facing an economic crisis of a scale we haven’t seen for generations.
Already, people have lost their jobs. Many more are on furlough or have had salaries reduced. Even by the Government’s own ‘roadmap’ from lockdown restrictions, it will be June at the earliest before things are anything like normal again.
Against this backdrop, the county council, run currently by the Conservative Party under the leadership of veteran councillor Geoff Driver, has opted to put up council tax by 3.99%.
They will shout from the rooftops that this lower than the 4.99% their officers proposed, which in turn is the maximum the Government will permit councils to put up council tax without having to seek formal approval the public via a referendum.
No council has had the courage to do that yet, certainly not in Lancashire. The result is a lose- lose. Council tax goes up at a time when household incomes are being squeezed, and LCC still need to save around £24m to balance its books.
So we are paying more for less. It’s a mess – and one which Rossendale Conservative David Stansfield had the courage to speak out against. It shouldn’t take courage to say the blindingly obvious in a council chamber, or to stick up for constituents – it’s what councillors are supposed to do when they are elected. But in Lancashire County Council, saying something the Conservative leadership disagrees with tends to get short shrift.
Opposition councillors complain that their chance to speak at meetings of the all-powerful Cabinet have been eroded under Cllr Driver’s leadership, and they also believe it took far too long for democratic meetings to resume online once the pandemic hit – Rossendale Council, for example, got itself sorted far more quickly.
Cllr Stansfield refused to back the rise in council tax, saying that “in all conscience” he would not have been able to vote “even for a penny increase this year”.
“We have got £159m in reserves at the county council and I think some of that should have been used this year to lessen the blow of the council tax, instead of saving the reserves for a rainy day – it’s pouring down with rain now, that day is here.”
His reward for sticking up for his residents? Suspension from the Conservative Party.
Cllr Driver said:
“Every political party has basic rules in place – we debate issues and then once a decision is made, members are expected to go along with that.
“David decided not to do that and I respect that decision – but the consequences are that you cannot stay a member of the group.”
What petty, pathetic, party politics to be playing in a time of crisis. Do as you’re told or you’re off.
It also begs the question what Rossendale’s other county councillors think of the tax increase. Cllr David Foxcroft (Mid Rossendale), Cllr Jimmy Eaton ( Rossendale East) cllr Anne Cheetham (Rossendale South) and Cllr Peter Steen (Whitworth and Bacup).
All supported the council tax rise, according to the council minutes of the meeting, so presumably are comfortable going to the polls in a few months’ time explaining why they are supporting us paying more for less in services.