The Anglesey County Council Executive have announced that they will propose a Council Tax rise of 4.5% to the Full Council on March 4th. This will be slightly less than the 5% previously predicted. The North Wales Police precept, part of the total Council Tax, has already been set at a rise of 3%.
Most councils will be finalising their council tax rises for 2010/2011 over the next month but with regards to North Wales, this is what we know so far:
- Anglesey County Council - 4.5% (proposed)
- Conwy Council - 4.7% (confirmed)
- Flintshire County Council - 3.3% (proposed)
- Gwynedd County Council - 3.9% (confirmed)
The reason for these quite large increases are rising inflation making the provision of services more expensive and the generally derisory settlement increases from the Welsh Assembly Government for many councils in North Wales compared to those in South Wales. For example both Anglesey and Conwy councils received a rise of just 1% from the Welsh Assembly Government compared to rises of 3.1% for Newport and 2.9% for Cardiff City in South Wales. These WAG settlements are determined by some formula which takes into account the various demographics of each area, but there is obviously something wrong with this calculation when the poorest county in the UK, Anglesey, had to negotiate a floor of 1% or it would have received even less. Why isn't Ieuan Wyn Jones fighting harder for his 'home' seat in the Welsh Assembly?
For comparison, the Local Government Gazette surveyed councils in England last November on expected rises to council tax in their areas. Below are the results:
The average rise was predicted to be just 1.6% with 34 of the 81 councils surveyed revealing they were actually planning to cut or freeze their rates! If only we could be so lucky here in Wales!
If you know by how much Council Tax will rise in your area, please do post in comments.
UPDATE: Now includes Gwynedd CC's rise.
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