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proposed council tax increase


wahl

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WBC proposing 4% increase in council tax "to maintain"services"".

Also want suggestions of how to save money.

 

Mine is to sack half the council staff especially those responsible for wasting council tax maoney in the environment department where the waste on bollards, unused footpaths, traffic lights that do not work, speed bumps and expensive useless staff are a waste of money. Lets see some savings not maintaining services as some services are not worth maintaining.

The biggest cst is staff so get rid and streamline. I do not intend to pay one penny more than last year extortionate tax so get banging heads you councillors or you will not be councillors for long.

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Take the ?700,000 wasted on the lights at Asda Westbrook out of the pension of whoever is responsible for the Highways Department.

 

Make all other department heads personally responsible for any money their department wastes.

 

Lose the posh car and driver, get the mayor a bus pass.

 

oh, and don't sell any more valuable building land for ?1.

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Are we supposed to be thankful that they are being so king becasue of the credit crunch that they are only increasing it by 4%. I wish my savings acount was being increased by half of that percentage rather than now being worth nothing.

 

And while I'm at it

 

....

the four per cent rise they are suggesting, is little more than a "standstill" budget.

 

It's not a standstill it's an INCREASE of 4% :evil:

 

...Council leader Ian Marks said: "We don't want to add to the doom and gloom.

 

Then don't increase it and learn to use what money you currently get more wisely like we are all having to do :roll:

 

..."We have talked to people too see the sort of things they want - and people do want to see services maintained and, where possible, improved."

 

Like what? No one has asked me what I think so why should I pay an extra 4% ?

 

 

.....they also had to look to the future and priority investment proposals including ?500,000 for the Building Schools for the Future programme, ?205,000 for neighbourhood working, including the provision of neighbourhood wardens, ?100,000 on reducing the risk of flooding, ?80,000 for improved technology in libraries and ?40,000 on improving parks.

 

Doesn't the 'Building Schools for the Future' money come mainly from the Government.

 

My home wont flood due to it's location...

 

What's neighbourhood working and what does a neighbourhood warden do... do I need one ??

 

My library has sufficient technolody already...

 

and my local park is nice thanks

 

Coun Bruce pointed out that the credit crunch hit the council as well as businesses and householders. For instance, the authority had faced an extra ?800,000 on fuel and energy costs.

 

Yep we are all being hit and some a lot worse than others but we have to pay our own fuel bills from our hard earned wages and by cutting back on things rather than just dipping into someon elses pocket to get a contribution.

 

I really resent and begrudge being forced into having to pay over ?100 every month in council tax.

 

BY THE WAY..... IT'S VERY ICY OUTSIDE AND YET AGAIN OUR ROAD HAS NOT BEEN GRITTED !!

 

My fingers are warm now after the increased blood flow :wink:

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On the WBC website they're claiming that they're going to be spending ?7.2million less:-

 

"In total our budget recommendations will reduce council spending by nearly ?7.2m next year."

 

and they moan that they're only getting ?1million more from central Government:-

 

"disappointing 2% funding increase we have received from central government. This 2% increase, or ?1m extra funding"

 

Now, when I was at school that would have meant that they need ?8.2million LESS than last year.

 

SO WHY DO THEY NEED AN INCREASE AT ALL????

 

....and if, as reported on WWW yesterday, they've managed to "find" ?10million in annual savings all of a sudden,

 

WHY DID THEY NEED AN INCREASE LAST YEAR????

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Mine is to sack half the council staff especially those responsible for wasting council tax maoney in the environment department where the waste on bollards, unused footpaths, traffic lights that do not work, speed bumps and expensive useless staff are a waste of money

Exactly, it beggars belief that the best part of a million was spent on a set of traffic lights to worsen traffic, that no-one wanted, and where there was not an issue in the first place, all becasue of "pedestrian priority" party political doctrine.

 

And now they want to spend god knows what completely digging up Callands Road to put in speed humps that is at "residents request" despite the local councillors not even being aware of the scheme! So if it's at residents request, who are they talking to? Certainly not the people who would be in a position to deal with their request!

 

 

Lets see some savings not maintaining services as some services are not worth maintaining
100% correct, sadly what the public think is irrelevant, and what doctrine dictates as "essential" are often two completely different things.

 

 

 

The biggest cst is staff so get rid and streamline. I do not intend to pay one penny more than last year extortionate tax so get banging heads you councillors or you will not be councillors for long.
Having spoken to a management consultant recently (yes I know leave it though) he said that most councils, if they were a private business would be running with 50% of the staff that they do as public bodies. there is massive over-employment.
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Well if Poll Tax is based on the levels of crime in an area, we better start ringing 999 and reporting those shadowy, knife and gun weilding figures running all over westbrook as well as the flashers and gangs of kids (all of which will magically disappear whenever one of our overpaid plod arrive!)

 

Combined with the traffic issues at ASDA that should see the poll tax bills plummeting nicely! :twisted::idea:

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Invite some travellers to take up residence in your area and watch the tax demands plummet :!:

 

We always had the bi-annual pikey trips to Westbrook. They all piled onto the car park near the cinema to park up their vans and leave their piles of crap everywhere. Of course the Police had to follow "proceedures" which meant the filthy scum were there for over a week.

 

They also parked up quite regularly on the roadside grass verges near the IKEA roundabout on Cromwell Avenue and on the land where the new Audi garage is.

 

Unfortunately, my poll tax bills have only ever gone up..... dispite the pikeys moving in. which is strange because I'm sure they would have to pay their proportion of poll tax wouldn't they? :lol::lol:

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A person I know has sent me this note sent to WBC about the proposeds tax increase

Re council tax

 

Firstly let me say that I disagree with your 4% figure.

You should be preparing a ZERO increase budget. This includes the Police and Fire eservices also receiving NO INCREASE.

 

Firstly no wage, salary or expense increases for any council employee or contractor should be allowed.

This is in common with most council tax payers and you should share the pain.

 

No need to "maintain? services. Get rid of useless ones and enhance all services.

 

1 The customer contact centre is not very good. When eventually one gets through, and leaves a message, it is unusual if anyone phones back to respond to the query. In fact the centre is a waste of time and should be scrapped together with the so called telephone system.

 

2 PCSOs are a waste of space and should be scrapped. Get the real police out of their hidey holes and put them on the streets. After all the money that the police authority scammed out of the public for the last two years was supposed to do this.

 

3 Cut Environment services budget by at least 30% This is obviously overstated as seen from the spend this end of year on useless schemes such as over ?35000 for unnecessary road barriers on Sankey Way, replacing good kerbstones on Sankey Way, ASDA traffic lights that are still causing peak hour traffic jams and out of peak unnecessary delays to traffic .

 

4 Cut any staff increases including so called ?enforcement officers?.

 

5 Cut all other budgets by 25%. Includes losing staff if applicable and scrapping ?political? projects.

 

6 Remove all 24 hour licences. Replace by 11-11 licensing hours and clubs until 0200.

 

 

7 Items stated on pages 5 onwards:

Items 10, 12, 13 half the investment value

 

item 14 half the investment but even better , scrap it altogether as it does not work as the persons who should reply do not do so replace with a web site giving all the work planned and underway from the environment department. This is simply the existing documents put on the web site therefore little cost.

 

item16, 17, 18 scrap the investment altogether

 

Item 15 one third off the investment value

 

 

 

Bit extreme but prhaps the councillors will get the gist of it? I hope!!!

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