UK Local Tax Hiked above inflation yet again

Council Tax bills have been on the rise, consistently and generally above inflation for years.

This year they are expected to rise by around 4% with some nearly as high as 5%.

There is always much acrimony between local politicians claiming that central government are; reducing the contribution they make to local funds fro taxpayer’s money and in many cases drafting, or rubberstamping, EU legislation that increases their costs.

The State meanwhile always mutters darkly of capping local expenditure and complains there is no excuse for ‘excessive’ Council tax Hikes.

Personally I have noticed absolutely zero improvement in the services I receive. In fact it is arguable they have actually deteriorated, especially rubbish collection.

Whatever – They are all politicians. I noticed when the poll tax was introduced quite a few local authorities took the opportunity to hit local residents in the pocket with a big hike they would have taken stick in local elections for otherwise and blamed Central Government and Margaret Thatcher.

Well they can’t conveniently blame Maggie now.

The fact is that we are paying more and more tax and it is rising by well above inflation. It may be that Central Government’s the inflation figures are effectively lies, the ‘basket’ being carefully tweaked by New Labour.

Never the less - someone is responsible… Where is the money going?

UK – Rubbish at Rubbish?

The Local Government Association (LGA) are reporting that the UK dumps more rubbish in landfill sites than any other country in the EU, despite massively increasing our recycling, reducing the amount of rubbish landfilled by 3.6% it seems European countries had also cut their landfill amounts.

I would be more impressed by these figures if I could find out the actual tonnage. As it’s easy to reduce the percentage of 100 things but 1,000,000 is much more difficult to influence.

Also It would be interesting to know exactly what these European paragons of rubbish disposal actually do with their rubbish when they are not using landfill as a means of disposal.