‘Freeze council tax’ call

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) was in St Helen’s Square, York, to call on York Council to freeze council tax bills in the next financial year.

The Government has offered councils a grant if they freeze bills but the alliance says the council has rejected this and plans a rise of at least two per cent.

The TPA’s Andrew Allison said increasing bills would impose “an unnecessary burden” on families.

James Alexander, leader of York Council, believes the freeze will increase cuts in coming years and said despite reducing back office administration costs from £17m a year to £13m, the scale of Government cuts means making tough decisions.

“This year we are increasing council tax by 38p per week and if we did not do his we would be looking at a further £1.8m of cuts over the next three years additional to those as a result of Government cuts,” he said.