At the Test Valley Borough Council meeting held on Friday 22 February the council voted to accept the Tory controlled Cabinet’s recommendation to raise Council Tax by 4.1%.  A proposal by the Liberal Democrats to freeze council tax for another year was defeated.

Councillor Hurst, leader of Test Valley Liberal Democrats said “the administration’s approach is to raise council tax because they can whereas the Liberal Democrat approach would be to freeze council tax because we can.”

He went on to say “It is important that the council recognise the financial difficulties that a lot of residents are in and that we need to do all we can to ensure that they keep as much money in their pockets as possible to support the local economy.  The council shouldn’t be taking more money than it immediately needs and simply putting it in the bank with no firm plans for using it”.

Freezing council tax was one of 3 options put to the cabinet by the Test Valley finance officer but they rejected it.   They chose to raise taxes by the maximum amount before government sanctions were triggered and a referendum would be required.   In so doing they gave up a government grant of £60,000 available if the council had frozen council tax.

“The suggestion that by giving Test Valley Council a dispensation to raise the rates by up to 4.1% that the government actually wanted us to do it was laughable” said Councillor Hurst.   “We proposed a council tax freeze and suggested that instead of putting all of next year’s £1.6m New Homes Grant into the bank 7% of it should be used to offset the proposed tax rise.  This would be equivalent to 0.2% of the council’s current investment portfolio”.

At the council meeting the Finance Officer was able to provide a positive assurance about the level of the council’s reserves even if council tax was frozen.

Councillor Hurst went on to say “we are not naive about this, we recognise that council tax rates will have to rise in due course as the current levels are not sustainable but this is simply not the year to do it.  The spectre of a triple dip recession still stalks the country and we have just lost our triple A credit rating.  If we can avoid raising taxes next year then we should”.