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Council tax to rise as £832m budget approved

1:20pm Tuesday 24th February 2009


COUNCIL tax bills in Wiltshire will rise after an £832m budget for the new unitary authority was approved at a meeting of Wiltshire County Council this afternoon.

Councillors approved an average Band D increase in the amount of council tax paid to the new council of 3.5 per cent.

Cllr Jane Scott (Con), leader of the county council, said the move from five councils to one, due to go through in April, had already saved £8m - £2m more than expected.

She said the new Wiltshire Council faced significant financial pressures due to the recession, rising costs and increased demands on its services.

But she remained confident Wiltshire Council would exceed the projected year-on-year savings of £18m and that the costs of the transition would end up being less than the expected £17m too.


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Your Say YourWiltshire

New 2 Trow, Trowbridge says...
1:45pm Tue 24 Feb 09

So the new council will have year on year savings of £18 million, has already saved £2-8 million more than expected and costs of the transition were less than expected......

..... So WHY arent tax payers seeing any benefit????

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Local Bloke, Calne says...
1:53pm Tue 24 Feb 09

Hear, hear. Come on then someone answer that question.

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Mr Steve, Warminster says...
1:58pm Tue 24 Feb 09

Easy answer. Gordon Brown has trousered the savings and given the council the smallest increase in central government grant. Labour Gvts don't like us cos all Wilts MPs are Tories. (Swindon is not in Wilts for council tax business). If we had a Jim Knight (Dorset south) representing us instead of the blue non-entities we have at Westminster then we might get a better deal.
Would you listen to James Gray or Murrison ??? Come on Tories select some local people like Charles Morrison.

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Trowbridge Bloke, Trowbridge says...
3:44pm Tue 24 Feb 09

Good answer Steve.

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bowerhill bertie, melksham says...
4:37pm Tue 24 Feb 09

When are the Council going to stop wasting money on team building courses when those teams won't even exist after April 1st. Unitary is going to be an expensive waste of time and the council tax will continue to rise. The only person making money from Unitary is Gary Smith, the farcical consultant who dreams up 'good ideas' like the new and improved parking proposals for Bradford on Avon.

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Michael S, Southampton says...
6:06pm Tue 24 Feb 09

This increase blows apart the argument that "they" continue to ram down our throats about unitaries being more efficient and costing less.

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howcomethatdoesntsurpriseme, trowbotown says...
12:52am Wed 25 Feb 09

Unitary, scmunitary - same orchestra - just variations on the same tired old tunes. The real clusterfcuks are in the pipeline - as I hear it there's deep problems integrating the different ways each council has done things - expensive retraining and associated consultancy bloodsucking is to come.

Removing some of the "senior" management tiers and service duplication in essentially the same area is to be applauded.

I do find myself wondering if HILLS is some obscure acronym for a WCC department though.....

The miserable municipal leisure facilities provided off the back of our council tax are a disgrace though - particularly in the County Town.


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Public Spirit, Wiltshire says...
7:40am Wed 25 Feb 09

How come this doesn't surprise me really says it all.

We all lived in hope that the new council would save us money. Is this the way of things to come though? Only time will tell.

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Nick Taken, Trowbridge says...
10:32pm Sun 1 Mar 09

Time is telling us, they are squandering taxes before the race has even started.
We need someone impartial to review all areas of this council and that person to have an axe that chops posts that self generate work.
They are all playing a game at our expense, a game we are allowing to be played.
It's gone into extra time, golden goal and penalties, what's left?
They start again thats what.
A game in a league with one team.
Hardly fair and they hardly care.

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Super council proposes council tax hike Council tax to rise as £832m budget approved


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