Ashfield council tax rise 'allows us to continue to provide services residents are proud of'

For the majority of Council Tax payers, it will mean an annual increase of £3.83.

Some 44 per cent of our residents living in band A properties receive the 25 per cent Single Person Discount so their annual increase is £2.87, or five pence a week.

I don’t want to patronise residents by suggesting that just over a 1p a day increase in Council Tax is acceptable. The cumulative impact of increases to what you pay in Council Tax is significant. Of that, there is no doubt.

Ashfield Council gets 9p in every pound raised in Council Tax. To put that into perspective, Nottinghamshire Council gets 75p out of the same pound.

This year’s Council Tax will go up more than £50 for a band A Council Tax payer at Nottinghamshire Council. Residents quite rightly ask if they get value for money from the county council, famous for being the council responsible for our broken roads and pavements.

In December, the Local Government settlement for Ashfield was announced by Government. The Conservative Government’s own figures showed that since 2015/16, Ashfield Council has received the second worst cuts of any council in the whole of England. So much for Levelling Up.

The settlement leaves Ccuncils like Ashfield facing difficult decisions like our small rise in Council Tax.

Since 2010, our Revenue Support Grant, our main source of Government funding, has gone down from about £15 million a year to next to nothing.

Since the Conservatives came to power, Ashfield Council has lost close to £100m in direct funding.

It has been a very tough decision to take given the national cost-of-living crisis brought about by massive levels of inflation in the economy. Without this small increase, continued delivery of some of our valued services would not be possible.

I’d remind residents of just some of the hundreds of services and things Ashfield Council does:

We empty 70,000 individual bins a week;

We maintain and invest in 24 parks including five Green Flag award-winning parks. This includes all the improvements in Selston Country Park including the café extension and new play park;

We’re investing £22.5m in state-of-the-art leisure centres in Hucknall, Kirkby and Sutton;

We provide a community protection team to help keep our communities safe;

We deliver the Ashfield Big Spring Clean – including an all year round, free bulky waste service;

We’ve built or are building 100 family homes and maintain 6,700 quality homes for Council Tenants;

We organise free, high-quality events like the Food and Drink Festival, the open air cinemas and Ashfield Day.

Residents will know that we do much, much more.

I am proud the Ashfield Council Tax Support Scheme is one of a limited number nationally that provides up to the maximum 100 per cent support available. This allows us to continue to support the most financially vulnerable residents in our District.

While no one likes to increase bills for residents – this is a small increase to allow us to continue to provide services residents are proud of.