Councillors in Tameside have agreed a maximum council tax rise of 4.99 per cent and £9 million worth of cuts – including reductions in recycling collections.
At a meeting of the full council on Tuesday night (23 February), a majority of members supported the budget for 2021/22, which means residents’ bills will rise by at least £50 from April.
However the minority Conservative group, which had voted for previous years’ budgets put forward by the Labour administration, said they could not support such a big tax hike.
Increasing council tax by 1.99 per cent and the precept for adult social care by three per cent will raise nearly £5 million for the town hall, helping to bridge the authority’s £23 million budget gap.
For a band A property this increase in council tax will equate to an extra £50.83 per year, or 98p a week.
Dry recycling collections of blue and black bins are also to move from fortnightly to once every three weeks as part of the budget plans to cut £1.8 million from the operations and neighbourhoods department.
While one Labour councillor Claire Reid said the changes were subject to consultation, they are included in the budget documents as planned cuts which would save £260k in the next financial year, and £530k a year beyond that.
There is no consultation currently being advertised into the changes to recycling collections on the council website.
Council leader Brenda Warrington told full council that the £23 million budget gap was not a ‘sign of our inefficiency’.
She said the council tax rise was the ‘only option available to us to ensure our financial sustainability’ but she was angry they had been ‘strong-armed’ into the measure by the government.
“More cuts are necessary in this budget,” Coun Warrington added. “And unfortunately our financial forecast up to 2026 predicts that further cuts will also be required in the years ahead.
“This is a choice that we would have much rather not had to make but the impact of over a decade of austerity and the betrayal of fair funding promises means that we are not the only local authority who have had to make these decisions to consider the maximum.”
She added that the coronavirus pandemic had ‘thrown into sharp contrast the endemic inequalities in our nation’.
“It gives me no pleasure to say that at a time when concrete action on fair funding is needed more than ever the promise that was made to us back in March last year that we would be given whatever it takes, that has proven to be very hollow words,” she said.
“The financial pressure faced by local authorities up and down the country as as result of the pandemic remains very challenging.”
Tory deputy opposition leader Councillor Ruth Welsh said that their group of five was not big enough to offer an alternative budget, but they were opposing the administration plans.
She said: “Tameside council relies on government grants and council tax hikes, it need not be this way.
“4.99 per cent is a large increase at any time but in a year where many people’s lives and finances are changed beyond recognition we feel it’s far too big of an ask for our residents so we won’t be supporting the rise.”
The budget was passed by a majority vote.
Main image:
The Tameside One council building in Ashton. Photo: LDRS.
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