FOR three years residents in South Cambridgeshire have enjoyed a bit of a free ride with council tax, but this year councillors are proposing a 100 per cent increase despite stern warnings from the Government that capping will take place.
The district council wants to raise its bills to £140 a year, from the £70 rate they have stayed at since 2002, when an audit found surplus cash reserves which were then used to subsidise tax revenues.
A “stony” response to the council’s pleas has already been sent back to South Cambridgeshire, warning it that it is in “severe danger” of capping, but executives believe they have a cast iron case.
The reserves have almost gone and the added problems of an influx of travellers in the area and plans for almost 50,000 new homes have led the council to ignore the Government’s 5 per cent limit on council tax rises and push on for a doubling of its rate.
It is facing a £1 million legal battle against the hundreds of travellers who have lived at Smithy Fen in Cottenham since 2003 and who have now been given leave to stay until 2007.
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“We understand that the Government has to take this firm line if it is trying to keep council tax rises down, particularly in an election year, but it has to have the flexibility and scope to account for unusual circumstances,” said the chief executive, John Ballantyne.
“For the past three years it has been a bit of a taxpayers’ holiday . . . but we have come to the point where there is no more room for manoeuvre and we can’t subsidise the council tax any longer.”
The council chamber, made up of 22 Conservative, 20 Liberal Democrat, 13 Independent and two Labour members, is to ratify the proposal next Thursday.
They will then have to wait to see whether Nick Raynsford, the Minister for Local and Regional Government, accepts their arguments for the substantial increase.
If not, they face imposing “draconian cuts”, they say, plus the cost of re-billing residents at the new rate.
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“We have always recognised that capping is a pretty crude and blunt instrument which ignores the individual positions of authorities,” said Mr Ballantyne.
“But we feel our argument is cast iron and to be capped when we would still end up below the average council tax rate just seems ludicrous.”