3/3/2008

Local News in Fleet

Inflation busting tax rise set after heated debate

Tempers flared as Hart District Council raised its share of the council tax by an inflation-busting 4.8%.

The ruling coalition administration said its budget was prudent and offered value for money. However, one opposition councillor likened it to “kicking out granny’s gold teeth to finance next week’s grocery bill”.

The 4.8% increase, finally approved during an often-heated 80-minute debate last Thursday night, means an average Band D household will pay £141.39 for Hart’s services in 2008-09.

Introducing the budget, cabinet member for finance Cllr Stuart Bailey pointed out that the level of government grant had increased by only 1% (£37,000) in 2008-09, while further increases of just 0.5% (£19,000) will be given in the next two financial years.

The Liberal Democrat, who represents Yateley East, said Hart’s grant of £3.8million was £2.4m less than its nearest district council in Hampshire.

Cllr Bailey said the budget provided for an increase in ground maintenance of £42,000 and an increase in litter vehicle and street sweeping of £136,000.

There would be extra equipment for tackling graffiti and fly-tipping, an extra community warden and more money for young people’s activities.

Cllr Bailey said there would be increased funding for the Citizens Advice Bureau and Hart Voluntary Action, significantly more money to help maintain the Basingstoke Canal and re-instated funding for the Call&Go service.

He said the budget increase of 4.8% equated to an average Band D bill of £141.39, an increase of £6.45 a year. This compared with neighbouring Rushmoor Borough Council’s charge of £174.57.

Cllr Bailey told colleagues: “This is a prudent budget designed to give value for money and I believe it will be popular with residents.”

Conservative councillors were furious.
Cllr Tim Davis (Fleet West) said: “Most of our residents would tolerate a rise that was modestly above the rate of inflation if they were to see an improvement in service delivery.
“Sadly, this service delivery seems to remain mired in a slough of despondency.”

Cllr Davis warned that having carefully built up reserves at a rate of around £210,000 a year in the early part of the last decade, the council was now depleting them at a rate of around £500,000 a year.

He added: “More brutally, the excess of revenue reserves above the minimum required will have fallen by 63% in two years. If we continue to spend at this rate we will exhaust our ‘free’ reserves during the year beginning in April 2009.

“This will require either a substantial cut in expenditure of £500,000 in the next budget cycle or, equivalently, a substantial rise of 15% in the council tax over and above that required to maintain ‘steady as she goes’ policy.”

Cllr Davis said the council seemed to stagger from crisis to crisis. He added: “There was a budgetary crisis in February 2007, we are now in the midst of a crisis in February 2008 and the third crisis will, like a third heart attack, be likely to be fatal but can be expected to arrive in February 2009.”

Cllr Davis said it was a budget that he could not support.
“This is not pawning the family silver, it is worse,” he said. “This is kicking out granny’s gold teeth to finance next week’s grocery bill.

“It is postponing solutions to a point in the future but this date with doom is now within sight. It will thereby inevitably place a crushing burden on future council tax payers.”
Cllr Stephen Parker (Conservative, Fleet North) was also angry.

He said: “A less charitable soul than I might have thought that this administration was stuffing Fleet and Church Crookham’s budget with the costs that this profligate cabinet could not land on the district budget.

“A more jaundiced mind than mine may have taken the view that this is a classic demonstration of the cynicism of this administration, whose colleagues in Blackwater and Yateley have kept some kind of control locally but are content to visit the burdens of their district failures on Fleet and Church Crookham.

“Indeed, some less full of the milk of human kindness than I could well be drawn to the conclusion that this is a demonstration that this administration is a manifestation of chronic catastrophic, characteristic incompetence.”

Cllr Colin Ive (Liberal Democrat, Yateley North) attacked the “absolutely outrageous” level of government grant given to the council.

He praised the budget for providing an additional community warden and helping keep Hampshire’s non-emergency 101 number going.

Cllr Ive was also delighted to see contributions to the CAB and Hart Voluntary Action, extra funding for youth and play areas and a big increase in funding for the Basingstoke Canal.

“This budget is very good news and we should be shouting its praises from the top of these offices,” he said.
“We’re in good solid hands. Thank you Stuart and well done.”

First printed in: Fleet News and Mail