COMMENT: Con leaves householders bearing the burden (From Bicester Advertiser)
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COMMENT: Con leaves householders bearing the burden
10:30am Wednesday 10th October 2012 in News
THE great council tax freeze of the past couple of years has been nothing but a great political con and the Government is lining up the councils to be the bad guys for the next few years.
For the past two years, we lucky residents have not had our council tax frozen because those generous souls in Westminster have been paying our county and district councils the equivalent of a 2.5 per cent rise.
The problem is that this Government grant has merely been funded by the general tax pot, so the reality is individually we have been paying out while the coalition Government tries to claim the credit for halting those nasty council tax rises for families.
Now it has scaled it back to a grant of one per cent, “allowing” councils to raise council tax by two per cent or hold a referendum.
It means the councils are damned – they either cut services or hike up council tax and shoulder the criticism.
