Council Tax below the rate of state pensions and benefit increases for second year running

For the second year running Colchester Borough Council's Conservative Cabinet is set to recommend a rise in Council Tax below the rate of state pensions and benefit increases.

Councillor Robert Davidson, Leader of Colchester Borough Council, said: "The recommendation of £5.25 a year or around 10p a week provides excellent value for money with continued improvement to front line services."

The Cabinet will debate this at its meeting on Wednesday 24 January.  If councillors agree the report's recommendations, Full Council on 21 February will be asked to set Colchester Borough Council's element of the Council Tax for 2007/08 at £161.73 a year for the average band D property.

Colchester Borough Council takes a small slice of the overall Council Tax, with the rest divided between Essex County Council, the Essex Police Authority, the Essex Fire Authority and the town or parish councils.

Councillor Robert Davidson, Leader of Colchester Borough Council, said: "Balancing the budget is always a great challenge for the council as people have rising expectations.  Central government only increased our grant by 2.4%, even though the current December inflation is 4.4%. 

"However, we have kept our promise to the people of Colchester to ensure the rise in our element of the Council Tax is kept to a minimum while maintaining a rising level of service for local people.  Pensioners and those on fixed and low incomes are protected by our decision to keep the council tax rise lower than their pension increase. 

By keeping the rise below inflation we can protect imposing high rises on residents, especially pensioners and those on low incomes, whilst being able to deliver excellent front line services."

"I am also pleased to say that we have provided substantial additional funds to invest in key services such as street cleaning and recycling.

"We have also continued to manage major projects like the community stadium with no impact our residents' council tax.

"Tough decisions have to be made in order to make the budget balance and we have done this by improving the way the council works, not by cutting what it does.  We have identified savings and extra income of more than £1.25million."

The council has plans to invest £586,000 of new spending into services
including:
* £200,000 for street cleaning
* £50,000 to extend the recycling service
* £19,000 investment in  tree management
* £247,000 to speed up regeneration work and secure a better deal for
Colchester
* £50,000 towards setting up a business improvement district in
Colchester.

Ends

Press release issued: January 18 2007