Mansfield council independents leader says council tax rise was wholly avoidable

Coun Mick Barton, Mansfield Independents leader at Mansfield Council

Myself and most of the Mansfield Independent Group pushed for no increase in council tax, but the too few people voted in favour of that.

Don’t be fooled by talk about it going up by a few pence each week.

A council tax D-band property has gone up around £60 a year with the police, fire and county council’s elements.

From a Mansfield Council point of view, the Independents group identified where the council could find the money to avoid a tax rise but these were ignored.

An ironic thing that came out of this was that the mayor and his cabinet were supporting the council paying for a extra police officer for the town centre, costing around £50,000 a year.

I’m a massive supporter of the police and everything they do in the town and district, but we have lost two neighbourhood wardens recently.

Maybe that’s on the back of this decision but we don’t know because we haven’t had a an answer yet.

Myself and three other colleagues recently attended a scrutiny panel to look at a motion put forward by Coun Lee Anderson, and amended by our group, looking at car parking provision in the district.

Some proposals were tabled and he chose to go with half-an-hour free on all surface car parks and if you pay for an hour, you will still get the half-hour free.

In the multi-storey car parks, it will stay at two hours with a third free.

We also agreed to look at reducing the outer car park charges to make them cheaper and more competitive with the private ones.

Another point was raised about season ticket machines and the officers are going to look at making this much easier for the customers to use.

Lastly, I was very upset to see what has happened with the brown bin collections.

Two collections have been cut off the schedule, but charges have not been reduced.

People opting for the service will be paying for it with a nine per cent cut.

I think it’s a poor decision but, again, no discussion regarding it.

Please let the council know if you feel the same.