To think council tax rises are a joke

[lljr82]

Another huge inflation busting rise in council tax, but they've closed the library, not fixed loads of potholes, reduced rubbish collecting, social care is apparently poorly funded, the school has to beg for money at the start of each term, closed the fire station, closed a hospital nearby, reduced police numbers and won't even visit when my car was broken into even though there should be CCTV footage of it.

It just seems like a joke. Where is the money going?

Most councillors are privileged middle class people who don't give damn about the services they rarely use. This applies to both labour and tory councils. The ones in my London borough all seem to be solicitors, financial type jobs and "business men".

Just looking at it -

£50 a month minimum per adult and £15 per child.

So for a family of 4...???

If you looked at the site you would be under the impression that you HAVE to have a membership, they do not advertise just coming for a swim sometimes. Also when I press the residents button it says "no available products" so no discounts for residents advertised.

That's nuts isn't it???

I spoke to my friend and she said if you rock up it's expensive but you can just go,

WHY don't they have a whiff of that on their website or the 1-off prices?

our leisure centres are all privately run now.

I do worry about schools though, if the extra money would be secured to build more schools exp specialist schools it would be totally understtandable but i don't see any plans..

This makes me SO SO angry. Our public services, our libraries, our schools, the things all functioning societies need, being destroyed. This is being done in a thousand ways around the country, never quite harshly enough to provoke a mass resistance in any one area and always primarily targeted at the people who can’t resist through poverty or won’t withdraw labour through duty.

If/when Labour get in again they’ll try to fill the cracks, then will be blamed for spending too much and the Tories will get in again to ‘sort out their mess’. This cycle has to be broken. We need to de-politicise health and education and accept that we must pay more tax for good public services. But we won’t of course. I can barely type through despair.

Sorry have started ranting.

I keep saying to DH that all of the stuff that was put in in the first part of last century -things around seeing us as a society, wanting all people to have access to things that were considered essential in a "civilised" scoiety:-

Free at point of service, accessible healthcare
Libraries so everyone can access literature and information, all children can have access to books etc
Parks so that everyone has somewhere to go that is green and peaceful and pleasant
Swimming & leisure so that everyone has the opportunity to keep fit, to do active things with their kids

All of this (and it's no surprise) is OUT under the tories, who believe that the "poor" and most of the "middle classes" TBH are undeserving,

And they all have their grounds and their own libraries and pay for private healthcare and gym memberships / have their own leisure facilities at home and why should they subsidise anything pleasant for the unwashed masses?

Whole thing is IDEOLOGICAL make no mistake about it.

school - mercury that reminded me - SCHOOLS

These fucking academy chains ASSET STRIPPING schools, how can that even be happening?

Going in, transferring all funds including fundraising to their own accounts, and then folding. It is a proper SCANDAL why isn't it in the news more?

Our council are currently planning to:
Build massive new academy at huge expense where it's not needed (there is an existing undersubscribed school which could be excellent if they poured 1/10 of that money into it)
Then OHO look that undersubscribed one can be closed! And what a surprise it's on massive grounds in a part of London that will be worth absolutely MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS to their property developer mates

It's all so utterly transparent.

Yep, it’s happening right before our eyes.

Some facts:

• most of the counciul spending goes on social care (adult and children)
• the tax councils get to keep/get paid is going down massively
• reducing costs mostly means sacking people. This is expensive and unpopular.
• a lot of councils are already consolidating to reduce costs e.g. buildings, people etc. This isn't as easy as you might think, and usually costs more money in the short term.

They are also allowing their property developer mates to let protected old buildings go to ruin so they can develop.

Pub down the road looks crap from outside to be fair, it's all very old inside though really old timbers.

They came and took the roof off and left it like that. If you stand at a certain angle you can literally see that the roof is just gone. They'll leave it like that for a couple years now until it is a ruin and potentially dangerous and then pull it down and put flats up.

The ancient beautiful timbers were removed carefully onto a lorry and taken away to be sold presumably. Friend saw them doing it.

It's also worth stating that the amount of money councils have to spend varies widely, as is their ability/willingness to spend it wisely.

local council have spent billions 'doing up' high street, looks awful and worse than ever, and every other (closed) shop doorway has homeless people in them. more than half the shops have closed for good.

local council spent billions making cycle lanes which onlyONE cyclist ive ever seen use, (drive down that road a lot) takes up half the road therefore causing more traffic jams.

loads of pot holes, cutting down on rubbish and recylcling collections,

librray closed, local iabled support group had their funding cut, these people just line their own pockets, thats where it all goes.

I would be quite comfortable saying that our council in parts is fairly corrupt and this is well known,

They are big mates with property developers, this is an expensive area (N London).

They also did a parks and public grounds survey recently, we have some open space here (fields, essentially) the metrics they chose meant that these very beautiful very ancient areas got marked as "low value" and I wonder what the next step will be - some of it is in a super expensive area and the property devs must be salivating.

Imagine like saying Highgate Woods was "low value" and considering selling it off, or hampstead heath.

If you don't like the people who are councillors easy.

Do it yourself. Put up or shut up. Join in, attend council meetings, lobby your councillors. Or you could just whine on MN.

They are going to close our library and childrens centre. So like others we will be left with bin collection (only fortnightly for rubbish) and roads (which are in a state) and which they refuse to paint the lines on.
I am disgusted about the library. And think social care should be funded centrally due to varying % of elderly etc.
The only 'good' thing is higher CT might encourage more older people to downsize meaning fewer new houses need to be built.
Worse is that new houses are beinh built so the council are already getting more than they were and yet are closing things.
I feel very sad for the kids with no libraries as this can really affect their progress

It’s really not that simple stay. Of course there is incompetence everywhere, but I know many local councillors in my city and they are mainly brilliant. The problem is the lack of funding and standing for election won’t help that.

Northants CC are a complete shit show and have been for years. The borough council aren't much better either.

Our libraries have all had their opening hours reduced or have closed altogether. They have just voted to cut funding to the bus service to our village altogether so we will have no bus service at all, ever. We are not walking distance from anywhere and a taxi to either of the nearest two towns is about £20 (one way). The pot holes are dreadful, some are so bad the roads are down to single track in some places.

But it's ok, cos they've just spent a fortune on a shiny new building for themselves which they actually can't afford to pay for, so they're going to have to sell it and lease it back. They are a fucking disgrace.

Yeah because MN is full of women who have plenty of time on their hands

20nil I'm with you. I think being a councillor is hard work.

I get really pissed off with posters talking about corruption and lazy councillors when all they do is post on MN.

Lack of funding is the issue, so join a party, change policy, knock on doors, get people to vote don't just complain.

How do you know all people do is post on MN?

How do you know posters aren't writing to their council, writing to their MPs, etc etc

You just assume that women posting on MN are lazy whiners with plenty of time on their hands to get stuck in but they can't be bothered, is that it?

One of our council blokes attacked a woman in a shop because she had a poster up about the parking fees. Why the fuck shouldn't I say that's utterly shit? He got prsecuted though so HA same as when the coucil lost in court and had to pay back loads of resident parking fees as they were unreasonable HA

He has said he wanted to screw the residents for all they were worth over parking.

Nice.

If more Women and Mothers stood as councillors then they would stop being Old White Men's clubs.

There are Parish Councils that have not had a contested election for decades.
If you want change, make it happen.

I will not stand for election - but I work actively day in day out to make Local Government work better FOR THE ELECTORATE

There is no THEM
There is only US

I think this is where the fact that the majority childcare usually falls to women & most single parent families are headed by women imapacts the community.

I was thinking about this last night, about "hobbies" and CVs and stuff. I thought, once there's a family, hobbies - serious ones - seem to be things that usually only men have. The "football widows", men doing golf, long cycling rides, that sort of thing. When women have hobbies they seem to be more things that fit around family life - making stuff for eg.

Now obviously this is not universal and hopefully is changing but bottom line is that a lot of the time, many women are simply too encumbered to commit to anything really, men have much more time.

Parish Councils are as little as one evening meeting every two months.

Larger authorities pay allowances that cover child care.

If you do not get involved, do not complain.

Ours has had a huge increase it’s gime up £20 a month and council have taken away more services
Google Sandown Isle of Wight council tax 2018 it’s disgusting