Conservative Westminster ups Council Tax by 37% in last four years

9.59.16pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 22nd Jun 2006

Conservative councillors have put up Westminster's Council Tax by 37% over the last four years

Westminster's councillors have increased the local Council Tax by 37% in just the last four years, according to an analysis of Council Tax figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats under the Freedom of Information Act.

Whilst Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone has increased his share of the Council Tax by a hefty two-thirds over the same period, the amount voted on and agreed by Westminster's Conservative councillors also shot up.

A person living in a band D property, for example, paid £445 in Council Tax in 2002, of which Westminster got £271. Today, four years later, the same Council Tax bill is £659, of which Westminster gets £370 - a rise in the Council's share of 37%.

Commenting, local Liberal Democrat treasurer Mark Blackburn, said:

"We do hear a lot of twaddle from the Tories about the Council Tax in Westminster, but as the facts show this is little more than spin. What they repeatedly fail to mention is that they have hiked it up over these past few years.

"I cannot help but think that if the Conservatives had exercised a little more financial discipline then the Council Tax could have been kept down. We already know, for example, that councillors buy 60 bottles of wine for themselves each year at taxpayers' expense, so there certainly is waste like that to be cut out.

"The Conservatives have been in power on the Council for more than 40 years. They have become complacent and this massive rise in the Council Tax demonstrates just that.

"At a national level also we need to look at how we fund local government. The current system, where what each resident pays is based upon what the property they live in was worth on April Fool's Day 15 years ago, cannot be the best way of doing it for very much longer. The system needs to be fairer."