Leading Plaid Cymru councillors have said they will keep their pledge to freeze council tax for the second year running.
Caerphilly County Borough Council was the only Welsh authority to peg council tax this current financial year. The UK Government handed the Welsh Government a windfall of £38.9m to compensate it for a pledge to freeze council tax in England, but this has not been passed on to Welsh local authorities.
Councillor Colin Mann, who is the council’s deputy leader and the councillor responsible for corporate finance, said: “We made it clear last year that our aim was to freeze council tax.
“This year has been really tough for families and individuals. They’ve had to face rising food and fuel prices and a huge hike in gas and electricity charges. At the same time many have found their pay frozen or even cut.
“Plaid councillors feel very strongly that we should do all we can to avoid increasing council tax, which is one of biggest monthly demands on people’s incomes. We feel it is crucial not to burden them further if we can.
“We froze charges this year while maintaining quality frontline services which have been recognised by Welsh Government Ministers and the aim is to do the same in 2012.”
Leader of council Allan Pritchard added: “We were criticised by Labour politicians earlier this year for freezing council tax. We felt it was the right thing to do in these tough times – and we still do. If Labour don’t agree with freezing council tax they need to tell the public how much they think bills should be increased by.”
He added: “I’d also like to pay tribute to the commitment and dedication of our staff during these very difficult times and the work and professionalism of our senior officers.”
Update: Labour attacks Plaid Cymru plans for council tax freeze
If council tax does not rise this year, remember this is only a promise so far, then the correct course of action has been taken.
Perhaps now the Assembly government will do something useful and revoke the re-banding exercise that took place a few years ago. This only applied to Wales, it was considered too risky, politically, to apply to England.
My own survey of 28, randomly chosen, homes in Caerffili at the time of re-banding revealed that most homes had been moved into a more expensive band. In fact only two homes, of the 28, received a reduction in their council tax bill.
This exercise in daylight robbery has not been rolled out to English homes and seems to have been conveniently forgotten by Welsh Politicians in Cardiff.