John Goddard slams Labour-Green council tax hike

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 28th Feb 2008

Cllr. John Goddard

In a letter to the Oxford Times, City Council leader John Goddard has slammed Labour's and the Greens' council tax hike. He writes:

"Would you rather any increase in the City Council share of council tax of was kept down below the rate of inflation at 2% or raised by double that at 4%? That was the simple question facing the elected members of the city council on Monday, 18 February. The Liberal Democrat Administration put forward a balanced budget which did not use council reserves at all and which kept the increase down to 2%, below the rate of inflation. We know that this is all that is required to maintain and continue to improve front-line services.

Amazingly, and depressingly, Labour and the Greens ganged together at the last moment to force through their plans to double the tax increase to 4%. This increase is unnecessary for the well-being of the people of the city. It is irresponsible and harms the poorest in our community who suffer from the unfairness of the council tax which takes the highest proportion from those on the lowest incomes.

For most of the last 25 years Labour has dominated a city council and left a legacy of high taxation and poor value for money. Their one track response to any difficult issue has been to throw money at it and put council tax up. Oxford City council after years of Labour's bad financial management has the tenth highest council tax in England. It is time to end this dismal cycle. The Liberal Democrats will not support any unnecessary hike in the unfair council tax. We voted at all stages of the budget debate for a 2% increase and refused all "deals" with the other parties. We made the case for keeping any increase in future always below the rate of inflation. We, Liberal Democrats, will make sure that in the city council elections in May the voters know who can be trusted to keep council tax down in future."