It’s Official – Lib Dems are Low Council Tax Party

Posted By: William Hobhouse
Date Posted: 30/10/2007

We’ve recently proposed a Council Tax increase of 3.8% for 2008/09 - the lowest for 11 years. That follows on from last year’s 3.9% increase – at the time, the lowest for 10 years!

No Rochdale Online reader should be in any doubt that, so long as I am Finance Portfolio Holder, the Council Tax in Rochdale Borough will be kept as low as possible – last year, this year, next year, future years…..

I am still quite amazed that in ten years of Labour Control, they never managed a single year of a low Council Tax increase. They were probably so busy protecting inefficient services and high wages that they never understood the principle of value for money.
 
The very positive thing this year is that we can keep the Council Tax low while maintaining or improving services. No cuts (whatever you may hear from Lab/Con). What we are doing is following a dynamic and positive agenda of change. There is change, and that is really what our political opponents object to.

For example, we have the extraordinary spectacle of Labour opposing our efforts to allow older people to live independent lives in their own homes. And then there’s the rabid opposition to the extraordinary improvement in recycling that the Lib Dems have pioneered (from 9% to 35% with Alternate Weekly Collections)

It does give you a flavour of what a return of a Labour/Conservative Council would be like.

A Labour/Conservative Council? Yes, that’s what residents had to put up with in 2005-6, and they’re still in cosy partnership in opposition. But not standing for much.