How does Wandsworth manage such as low council taxes ?

[lolstevelol]

https://propertydata.co.uk/council-tax

High population
same as Westminster and Greenwich where I am
my council tax is really cheap

I wouldn't live in Wandsworth if they paid me.

Wandsworth is lovely

I live in Wandsworth. Services are pretty good actually, and I love it here. The river, lots and lots of green spaces ... Population is high (more tower blocks every day which I don't love so much) and there are many many tax payers, that will be most of it. The Council presumably has significant reserves as well. As someone says, Westminster and Greenwich are similar. All that said, I'd personally be happy to pay more, especially towards social care and schools.

Not sure if it’s still the case but they did used to receive a fair lump of government money in comparison to some other London boroughs which helped keep CT lower May have changed over the last few years.

London in general has a higher percentage of households in the middle to high council tax bands than for example Yorkshire or the North West.

@DenholmElliot11 why is that ?

Interestingly Rutland (highest average) is £1k less than I pay (£3470 a year) in a naice part of Scotland. So I don’t think averages are particularly helpful.

Population density probably? My county is rural and all constituencies are on the higher lists.

Doesn't Scotland include water though?

To be fair yes. But I think rates in Scotland are generally much higher when water and CT are added together but that’s another thread lol!

Rutland is the lowest funded by grant from central government

Massive increase in population many of whom are wealthy.

Lots of thriving businesses - cf Battersea Power Station development.

Significant reserves built up by the previous Conservative administration.

It’s not just population density - neighbouring boroughs (e.g. Lambeth) have similar or higher population density but much higher council tax.

1. Wandsworth is richer than the national and London averages. So less social care spending
2. Wandsworth is younger than the national average. So less social care spending
3. Wandsworth has more commercial premises than most areas, and those premises are often quite valuable. So lots of business rates revenue. Business rates are much, much higher than council tax.
4. As already pointed out, Wandsworth, like many London Boroughs has a lot of expensive houses in high CT bands. So they can tax less for any individual band and still get more overall, compared to poorer areas with cheaper houses.
5. Wandsworth is clearly quite well managed and quite efficient in what it does - again, compared to Lambeth etc. This definitely helps. But it’s probably a smaller factor than what’s listed above.

My friend used to live in Wandsworth and always swore it was because people went out of borough for services, proportionately, because of where it was and because it's quite small. So quite a lot of 'local' schools were in another borough, for eg. Don't know how true it is.

Last time I was there they were laying flipping lovely new pavements and the workmen were so friendly and polite...

Doesn’t Wandsworth have to pay the other borough though if a child residing in Wandsworth goes to school somewhere else? I always assumed that but no idea if that’s the case in practise

Yes significant reserves and investment in the 1980's from sale of public services. They were Margaret Thatchers favourite borough.