The political groups on Powys County Council may have already decided to increase council tax for the seventh successive year. It’s time to take a stand and simply say to our County Councillors: “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”.
By agreeing to carry out the Welsh Assembly Government’s orders and raise Council Tax in Powys our Councillors are aiding and abetting in the transfer of scarce resources from Powys to South and West Wales for the further aggrandisement of their headquarters in Cardiff Bay. WAG are doing this by forcing council taxpayers in Powys to make up the ever-increasing shortfall in the funding that Powys County Council receives from WAG.
Remember, it is not profligate spending by the county council that has caused the funding shortfall, rather it is profligate spending by the euphemistically misnamed “One Wales” government who would rather waste taxpayers money on a huge subsidy to private operators who run the North-South Air Link, on private contractors who wilfully overspend on road projects in Wales which the Assembly Government has failed to control and bailing out the Millennium Arts Centre located, guess where? Yes, Cardiff Bay.
This is the same “One Wales” Government that now wants us, the hard-pressed Powys taxpayers, to give them more powers to continue their profligacy. It is time to say “No” to any further rises in council tax, it is a tax than only ever increases, and it is a grossly unfair tax. Remember the council tax base in Wales, the notional value of our properties, was re-valued upwards in 2006, so that most of us faced a huge increase in our council tax bills then. This hasn’t happened in England, there council tax payers are still paying their council tax based on 1991 valuations. But then they don’t have to pay for an additional tier of government.
Currently, we in Wales contribute towards four tiers of government: the UK government at Westminster; the regional government at Cardiff Bay; our county councils and our town or community councils. We have become grossly over-governed and it is time to change the governance in Wales. At least one tier of government needs to be removed and quickly, before the tax burden in paying for this becomes unsupportable.
Write to your representatives and demand no further increases to council tax until at least one tier of government is removed.
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6 comments:
What are you going to do, then? Refuse to pay? Vote UKIP in May? What?
I'd rather cut off both hands than vote UKIP.
This issue is a serious one and needs to be addressed. What to do about it depends on what support is likely to be forthcoming. None of the conventional political parties seem to want to address the issue - perhaps we need a grassroots campaign to call for the abolition of Town & Community councils and to slash the number of county councillors. Me refusing to pay my council tax without any support is simmply not going to cut it.
if you cut off both your hands it's going to be difficult to vote anyway
Yes, that's the point of my comment!
I wrote to Powys CC in March after the PM said on national TV (in the One Show) that all Council tax would be frozen this year. I still haven't had a reply.
As we know to our cost, local government income is a devolved matter so is the responsibility of the Welsh Assembly Government.
With regard to the none reply to your letter, Powys County Council operates a policy that they will reply to correspondence within three weeks of receipt of the letter. So I think you need to write a letter of complaint to the Chief Executive with a copy to Councillor Michael Jones, currently Chairman of the Council's Board and soon to be Council Leader.
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