Rochford District Council approved it’s budget for next year, and the Echo report sums things up pretty fairly:<\/p>\n
COUNCIL taxpayers in the Rochford district face a 4.87 per cent increase next year, as the council battles to maintain spending below the Government’s capping limits.<\/p>\n
However, the full impact will not be known until the county council, police and fire brigade figures are made official.<\/p>\n
For local services, it is proposed council tax on an average Band D property should rise from ?179.28 to ?188.01 – an increase of ?8.73 per year, or just under 17p per week.<\/p>\n
Council head of finance Yvonne Woodward said the real increase in funding from the Government had been 2.2 per cent, adding Rochford remained the second lowest funded council in Essex.<\/p>\n
She said the increase in council tax was higher than desirable, but had to allow for expenditure.<\/p>\n
Ms Woodward said the council was investing just under ?1million in the new street cleaning and waste collection contracts, which should see recycling rates rise from less than 20 per cent to around 35 per cent in the first year, and up to 50 per cent in the following years.<\/p>\n
The concessionary bus fare scheme for over-60s was expected to cost ?840,000 next year, which was ?320,000 more than initially expected.<\/p>\n
Council deputy leader Keith Hudson said the bus fare scheme and the need to increase recycling rates were the major reasons for the increase.<\/p>\n
He added: “Once again, a major problem is the very poor council tax settlement which we have received from the Govern-ment.”<\/p>\n
Lib Dem group leader Chris Black said while there were some small concerns about parts of the budget, his members accepted the proposals as a whole and felt they were the best which could be achieved.<\/p>\n
The final figures will be confirmed at a council meeting in February.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There was an attempt this year to get a consensus on the budget. During the past few months the Lib Dem councillors have discussed the budget with the Tories and the officers at council ‘away-days’. More significantly, Chris and June Lumley were closely involved in the new contracts for recycling and grounds maintenance.<\/p>\n
There are indeed some issues that we are unhappy with. For example, some of us are sceptical about spending ?5,000 reviewing the council newspaper “Rochford District Matters”. And we would like to allocate some funds for “Residents Parking Schemes” – but the Conservatives refuse to do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rochford District Council approved it’s budget for next year, and the Echo report sums things up pretty fairly: COUNCIL taxpayers in the Rochford district face a 4.87 per cent increase next year, as the council battles to maintain spending below the Government’s capping limits. However, the full impact will not be known until the county […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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