Yay, 10%. Along with changing bin collections to fortnightly (probably won't affect us personally, but I eagerly await even more litter on the streets), plus millions in cuts to various services, as if the place wasn't enough of a ****hole.
How much has your council tax gone up this year?
- Thread starter Nitefly
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I wonder how it's going to pan out.
So many people will need support in retirement in future. The welfare Bill will be too much to pay unless some politicians get serious about taxing wealth
Even if you just let people die it will grind the economy down as a bigger and bigger demographic just won't be able to spend on luxury goods.
Not just the UK either.
They really should have pursued th equal pay case all the way to the supreme court, total joke (and borderline commie nonsense) that some completely different jobs are considered "equivalent" or that it's discrimination to pay different rates for them.
It doesn't matter if something requires the same education level (or lack of) some jobs are going to face differing levels of applications, and differing employment markets and need to be able to adjust to reflect that, one size fits all doesn't make any sense if you're comparing refuse collectors with caterers, especially if you're also dealing with industrial action say on the part of the refuse collectors. Ditto to other farcical stuff like warehouse workers and shelf stackers or till workers in supermarkets... if someone wants the higher paid warehouse work then they should go and work in the warehouse!
Apparently 1/5th of the Council tax goes to paying the local government gold plated pensions
Defined benefit pensions were a very bad idea and cause a huge liability. It's worse in the US where there's less central government involvement, local governments are more reliant on funding from their local taxation... so you have a city like Detroit where a load of the population moves out but the returned public sector workers, police officers etc.. that used to serve a more productive, larger population still need to be paid for by the current, economically deprive population.
Not an issue if your pension payments actually went into a pot and you were paid based on your contributions and investment performance... but with defined benefit it's just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Anyway, on the topic of Birmingham:
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Man of Honour
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Our second home council tax has doubled to try to free up the housing market. Jokes on them, I won’t sell, but I’ll have less money to spend in local businesses.
They probably got advice that they would not win any appeal. The Equal Pay Act has been around for over 50 years and is hardly controversial these days.
The effects are devastating though - 25 out of 36 libraries closed and £112 million in cuts to children and family services. The Conservative central government has created this mess by defunding and deregulating local authorities. They could and should step in to fix this crisis but they won’t.
It's pretty controversial when years of back pay are suddenly owed and a council goes bankrupt as a result, it's just farcical really. If they were paying female refuse collectors less than male refuse collectors then fine, trying to compare completely different jobs and arguing that they need to be paid equally makes very little sense in reality even if you can make some dubious argument re: an admin point re: the pay band they're in. Perhaps they need some similar but different pay bands to not open this stuff up to future liabilities in the first place.
Permabanned
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4.75% down here in Torbay, so not quite the 4.99% that everyone else is being hit with but certainly a noticeable amount.
Wouldn't bother me much if the public services actually improved but they don't. They just get worse.
Wouldn't bother me much if the public services actually improved but they don't. They just get worse.
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My sister lives in Birmingham. For some reason they like it.
Luckily they are in a low band. But unluckily she's expecting a baby.
We all know CT never goes down. So after the 20pc rise. It'll be 5pc yoy at best.
CT rises are beginning to get significant. To the point people may decide against living in x/y/z if disparity increases.
Right now CT across counties doesn't look too different. Pembrokeshire for example is quite cheap. So it's huge rise isn't anti competitive.
But we all feel we are giving more for less.
Its just another example of the UK downturn we are all feeling.
She could perhaps look at areas that fall within Solihull Council instead of Birmingham, rates are similar-ish but the rise in them isn't and more importantly, she'll likely have better local services.
Unfortunately they have recently bought.
I mean it's not enough to make you move. But it's enough to make you think if you're thinking of moving to Birmingham.
Its the combo of lack of services... And paying a good whack more for it... That really stings.
Just popped figures in.
Her band B will be going up Same as our band E for 2 years. (assuming Cardiff gets 3pc and 5pc vs their 10pc and 11pc bumps)
Tbh. Not sure if I'd want a band F property.
Our band E is 2100. And band F is 2500.
Thats quite the jump.
Does make a difference.
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Yeah, we are just over the border, we are currently pushing to build a wall and make them pay for it, We can't have those sorts of people coming here and using our bins.
Soldato
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Almost all town halls are planning maximum council tax hike in April
New figures show 129 out of 136 county and unitary local authorities in England who have made announcements are increasing levies by 4.99 per cent in April.
We're just on the wrong side of it (literally at the end of our road).
Just heard on the news they're introducing parking charges at the local park we go to quite often as well. Guess we'll be creating more traffic and pollution* travelling elsewhere then.
* Well we drive an EV, so maybe not, but that's not the point!
Man of Honour
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This, I wouldn’t even mind if it wasn’t for everything literally crumbling around us.
9% I'm curious what the council liability is for the pothole that has gotten so deep it's exposed wires is in regards to a motorcycle/bicycle/pedestrian getting caught in them
I think they're probbaly sensing cables but it is alarming to see wires exposed in the road
I think they're probbaly sensing cables but it is alarming to see wires exposed in the road
Suddenly? It's more because the council are truly awful and absolutely incompetent. They new it was coming a decade ago, and have already paid out over a billion pounds. Instead of fixing the issue years ago, they have let it run and run until they owe another £750 million. The bill currently goes up something like £30 million per month. Years ago they should have took the pain and re-worked the grading job system, instead it's head in the sand. As bad as the central government are, the blame for this mess lays clearly with Birmingham council here. No need to worry though, nobody will ever be sacked for the chronic miss-management of the councils finance. Things will be sold off to the 'right' people while the people are made to cough up and suffer. Just look at the NEC group, the council sold it cheap for £307 million in 2015 to help pay the equal claims bill, only for it to be sold 3 years later for £800 million!
Post it on Twitter and tag in your local rag, Daily Fail, etc.
