Hucknall residents to face council tax increase as Nottinghamshire County Council plans 4.84% rise from April

Nottinghamshire County Council is set to raise council tax by 4.84 per cent from this April.

The Conservative-run authority plans to raise core council tax, which funds services such as education and transport, by 2.84 per cent as well as raising the adult social care precept by 2%.

The rise will see an average weekly increase of £1.10 per week for residents living in Band A and Band B properties which equates to 59% of households in the county.

The maximum overall council tax rise that can be issued is 4.99 per cent which neighbouring authority Nottingham City Council has opted for.

The County Council decided against this measure and Councillor Ben Bradley MP, the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council was bullish about taxpayers getting value for money due to the quality of services provided as well as the lack of cuts being made.

Speaking to Hucknall Nub News, he said: "In effect we're in a pretty decent place. The inflationary cost to us of 11% plus wages and all the rest of it is over £25million so despite that we're going to come in pretty much on budget for this year which is incredible really, testament to a lot of hard work that's gone on.

"We're going to announce a budget that avoids any drastic cuts really which I think is positive. We've managed to soak up a lot of that within the council.

"We think that we will be below average in that sense (overall increase), in that the County Council network indicated before Christmas that they think 75%-80% of County Councils will take the full 5% rise which we're not going to do. That's another £1million a year that we're kind of taking on the chin.

"But the key thing for us is trying to get to a sustainable place where we're not having to have an annual conversation about what do we cut and how much we up taxes by because we've changed the way we deliver services and we've made things more sustainable.

"We're trying to join up areas of the council so we're more effective in the way that we deliver things which adds to the efficiency and effectiveness of it all. We're actually trying to move money out of the centre if you like into communities."

Mr Bradley is also proud that the Council hasn't closed any libraries or ended provision due to the economic climate.

"We're absolutely committed to where there is library provision there will still be library provision and we're going to boost rather than take away from those local community based services.

 "We've always made that commitment and we've got that security and we've prioritised that, not just libraries, but children's centres, youth centres, family hubs, things that are really important in terms of offering that early local help for people and the key thing for me, is how do we get the very best value for that money?"

A body of work is set to be undertaken later this year by the Council to work out how to maximise library provision in each local context to ensure residents are getting the best deal possible.

Mr Bradley added: "So where we've a hub library like Hucknall that is a good facility with some space and some opportunity there, how do we deliver more from those kind of hubs? How do we make that a real access point for residents to be able to get support? That means perhaps in some places changing the way we do things, or adding to it, or bringing different staffing or services into some of those library settings.

"Hucknall is a decent sized hub/library facility where we could add more, where we could work with partners, and we could deliver more from that building. Other libraries in other parts of the county are mobile or are rundown buildings that are only open a few days a week where they might be better co-locating with a District Council or another partner and doing it slightly differently.

"We'll protect the provision but we want to make it better and we want to make it so that we're getting the best value in terms of services for that money so it will look different everywhere but we really want to work with our local partners as well across all sorts of services, health, district councils, to make sure that we across all those services are getting the best value."

Mr Bradley also stressed that the Council is making huge efforts to save money through permanently closing some offices, and temporarily closing others during major holiday periods such as Christmas and Easter.

He said: "From a County Council point of view we've got ongoing projects where we've come out of eight office buildings, we're saving millions of pounds in terms of our own utilities and maintenance and office costs in order to reinvest that in the services that residents receive from us.

"The biggest thing from a Hucknall perspective is Top Wighay, we've had all sorts of debates about the cost and benefits of it but fundamentally moving from 17 offices into eight or nine including building Top Wighay will save us millions of pounds every year that we can then reinvest in that community provision in children's centres or in social care, so that's really positive, as I say making sure where we are asking taxpayers to fund services they are getting absolute best value for that.

"I want to get to the point, and we are there this year, I think, where though council tax will go up, not by the maximum, but where it will go up, residents are actually going to get more value for that council tax rather than less as might have been the case in the past."

Unsurprisingly the plans have drawn heavy criticism from opposition parties.

Councillor Kate Foale, Labour Group leader, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "This is raising council tax on local residents during a cost-of-living crisis with no ask of the Government to do better to fund services properly.

"I would say this is not exactly most people in Nottinghamshire's idea of 'levelling up'.

"The Tories in County Hall are still happy to kick the problem down the road rather than demanding better funding from Government, and that is a failure of leadership.

"Under a Labour-led council, our first order of business would be to challenge the Government on their decade of underfunding local public services.

"Council tax rises are a sticking plaster, we need long-term solutions to these problems."

Councillor Jason Zadrozny, Leader of the Independent Alliance at County Hall said: "The County Council are expecting hard pressed residents to put their hands in the their pocket yet again. This new rise will mean that the average Council Tax for Nottinghamshire County Council has gone up by over £350 a year since 2017. Residents will be furiously questioning whether they get value for money – with complaints about the broken roads and pavements at a record high. The Independent Alliance opposition group are working on a plan (to) cut this rise and protect residents."

The budget will be presented to full council in February.