THE BUDGET at Thurrock Council has been approved.
A council tax increase of just under 5% was agreed.
A ninety minute film of the proceedings is below.
In the film you can see:
Thurrock Council leader, cllr Rob Gledhill sets out his budget proposals for the next year. A Band D property would see their Council Tax increase from £1,169.46 to £1,226.61. That is £57.15 a year or £1.10 a week.
The leader of Thurrock UKIP, cllr Graham Snell responds to the report (12 min mark). He stresses that they are there to vote on what each department has to spend and not why they spend it on. His main area of concern was that “everything is stretched close to breaking point” and “Enough is enough”.
Cllr Geldhill responds.
The leader of Thurrock Labour, cllr John Kent responds (25 mins). He immediately points into the environment budget and believes it has “£6 million less to spend….where has that money gone?
Like UKIP, he makes reference to the adult social care crisis.
A number of other councillors spoke.
In this order:
Cllr Roy Jones (UKIP)
Cllr Jack Duffin (UKIP)
Cllr James Halden (Cons)
Cllr Joy Redsell (Cons)
Cllr Gerard Rice (Lab)
Cllr Angela Sheridan (UKIP)
Cllr Deborah Huelin (Cons)
Cllr Mark Coxshall (Cons)
Cllr Terry Piccolo (Cons)
Cllr Barbara Rice (Lab)
Cllr Graham Hamilton (UKIP)
Cllr Sue Little (Cons)
Cllr Oliver Gerrish (Lab)
Cllr Sue MacPherson (Cons)
Cllr Shane Hebb (Cons)
Most residents in Thurrock will not mind the inflated 5% rise in council tax if it is needed for our local sevices provided is not used to inflate councillers wages and pension pots.
patrickh – Speak for yourself, there are some people out there for whom a 5% increase in CT along with whatever increase there will be in rent and the proposed Service Charges for those in council properties (which are an inevitability given that Tories don’t like the poor and it’s what they want regardless of any opposition) will be too much to cope with, pushing many more people into financial hardship.
Of course, people in financial hardship will turn to the burgeoning Pay Day loan companies to cope which will increase the level of personal indebtedness, causing greater hardship, and the cycle continues. Given that the Tories in Central ‘government’ keep saying that the UK “should live within its means”, they do little to ensure that its citizens (i.e. the people they work for) can do the same. Oh, I forgot…most of them have some financial interest in Pay Day loan companies. Ah, it all makes sense now!