PUBLIC ANGER AT TAX RISES

By Phil Coffers

LABOUR-run Crumberland Council wasn’t the only local authority to get rotten tomatoes from the Cumbrian public about plans to hike Council Tax.

So too did Wokemoreland & Farcical Council, which is run by a coterie of well-off, well-fed snaggle-toothed Lib Dems from the ‘slums’ of Kendal. (Average house price £276,000.)

The Party, along with ruling Labour councillors in charge of Cumberland, are currently agitating for Devolution without disclosing that a new Cumbrian Mayor would only add another payee to your future Council Tax bills!

Nearly 70% of the public across the Penrith, Kendal and Barrow area who bothered to complete W&F’s budget survey DISAGREED with it increasing Council Tax by 4.99%.

But to find any articles in our local “newspapers” which fully encapsulate this public outrage will leave you with square eyes.

Instead, the media’s focus here has been allowing ruling Councillors reams and reams of supportive column inches to justify Council Tax increases while bleating about how hard up Councils are.

Oh do bore off.

Of circa 140 comments made to the Council during the budget consultation, W&F neatly summarised these into well-behaved single line remarks rather than spelling them out in full.

(This was presumably to save ruling Councillors from the embarrassment of seeing where the public suggested they stick their Council Tax rises.)

Among the criticisms from the public were money-wasting vanity projects like the over-budget £8.3m ‘eco-friendly’ Voreda House in Penrith.

(Voreda House now needs a diesel generator and is so ridiculously insulated that over-cooked staff have been known to be propping open the doors all day – even in winter.)

Also getting a caning from the public were the RIDICULOUSLY high salaries paid to top officers at the Council.

(Eleven of W&F Council’s top directors share £1.8 million in pay & pensions between them.)

The Local Government Pension Scheme coughs up a hefty 17% contribution – a perk not yet believed to be common in the Private Sector.

Council chief executive Sam Plum (Job) was paid a ‘basic’ £177,000 in 2023/24 and then had more than £30,000 paid into her pension pot, for a total package of £208,000.

There’s no sign of a pay cut on the horizon.

Just like Crumberland, W&F Council also expects to set aside £1.2m every year just to fund automatic annual pay rises for employees, which will require an extra £6m over the coming five years.

(There’s no such thing as a pay freeze on the Local Government gravy train so wages go up even if performances plummet.)

Over the coming year, the Council will collect £184m in Council Tax; £64m in Business Rates; £37m in grants, and £9.1m from the Government.

Yet Lib Demmers running the show have complained that all of this money is still not enough.

There does not seem to be any political appetite in the Council chamber for cutting its cloth and reverting back to basic statutory services.

Instead, with no proper scrutiny of its spending by our local “newspapers”, the Council prefers to keep pouring ever more money down the Local Government black hole and raiding the public every year to fund it.