Council Claims It Had No Choice But to Increase Council Tax and other Charges

Council claims that significant cuts from Government mean Westmorland and Furness Council had no choice but to increase council tax and implement a number of other additional charges

Today, councillors at Westmorland and Furness Council “reluctantly“ agreed to a 4.99% council tax increase alongside the following changes.

A new annual charge of £60 per bin for garden waste collections. This charge will only be applied to residents who choose to use the service and will be managed through an annual subscription.

Car park charges will be increased by around 10%.

Increases in the charges for the use of Windermere Ferry, and the removal of the 'Blue Badge' exemption and

That other fees and charges are increased in line with inflation.

Cllr Andrew Jarvis, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, said:

"Our council has suffered grievously in the Government's funding settlement. Given the scale and loss of funding from government which is circa £43 million over the next three years, we have had no choice but to recommend the implementation of increased council tax and charges that will sadly affect every resident in the Westmorland and Furness area.

"£43m is possibly too large a number to be meaningful. So let me describe it another way. The Government is cutting their funding over the next three years by around £400 for each and every household in the Westmorland & Furness area."

Cllr Andrew Jarvis continued:

"What I would add is that as a responsible authority with a strong grip on our finances we have already been looking at how much we can save by fundamentally challenging what the council does and how it does it.

"This has been a difficult budget to propose and vote through. It includes changes to charges that we would have all preferred to have avoided. It also includes a series of workforce savings of circa £5million that includes a reshaping of our senior management team.

"Reductions to our workforce is not easy or ideal. We have a hardworking, committed workforce who are focused on providing essential services to our residents and this budget lets us retain all front-line services.

"Implementing changes that affect our residents and our staff are always hard and challenging, but this is something we must do now if we are to continue to balance our budget and provide the level of service our residents deserve."

The budget setting debate saw a motion amendment added by the labour group, one of the members of the group said the “Cabinet have allowed spending to get out of control”

Members of the labour and conservatives groups along with independent and Green Party councillors on the council voted against the budget that passed with the votes of councils Liberal Democrat’s group who hold the majority seats on the council.