Vale to be stung by double tax rise (From Barry And District News)

Vale to be stung by double tax rise

COUNCIL Tax will rise by 4.7 per cent in the Vale of Glamorgan.

This will coincide with the tax re-banding, which will mean another increase for many householders on top of the 4.7 percent basic rise, which was agreed by the full council at a meeting last week.

Leader of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, Cllr Jeffrey James said: "We have set the level so that we are not capped by the Assembly Government.

"But cuts in the budget have long since cut through the fat, it is now bone."

The budget of 158 million contains cuts of 5 million, but Cllr James stressed that rumours of the closure of care homes and other social services were unfounded.

He said: "I think we have managed to maintain the balance between keeping the council from being capped and making sure the budget is sufficient to maintain the current level of services.

"I did not want the rise to be any more because so many people in the Vale of Glamorgan have been re-banded.

"The increase is below that recommended by our officers. They wanted an increase of around eight per cent.

"In our budget this year we have to make provision for other services such as the setting up of a licensing group which has had no funding from the Assembly."

Chief executive of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, John Maitland Evans, said: "This is a well-run council. It is the fourth lowest spending council in Wales.

"The money we get to run the council is the lowest amount of money received bar one authority in Wales."