Your headlines this week on the increase in council tax provide grim, but not unexpected, reading.
A few weeks ago you published an article where I was complaining about the loss of certain assets from Weymouth to the new Unitary Council, costing the council £3million.
We can now put that into perspective. Not being greedy, let us assume £1m should have remained in Weymouth Town Council’s hands. This would have increased council taxes across the County by approximately £6.50 /year on average, but reduced Weymouth’s Council Tax bills by approximately £60/year!!
That is why Weymouth has the biggest increase. The other interesting fact coming from the bills is the increase in the police precept.
Chancellor Hammond, when challenged about cuts to the police forces being responsible for the huge increase in knife crimes, said the Government were pumping an extra £1b into the funding. This was clearly misleading as the vast majority of this money is coming from you and I through this increased precept which he admitted when challenged.
The other large amount in your bill is the extra being raised for Social Services, which once again the government claims credit for increasing the funding, but once again it is us who are paying, not the government.
Councillor David Harris
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