At the last meeting of Aylesbury Town Council (13^th Jan 2011) we discussed the budget for 2011/2012, the proposal was for no increase in the precept & was carried so your Town Council bill will remain the same as 2010/2011.

My colleague Cllr Kevin Peters took a different view, and asked for an increase of 2.5%, I seconded this and voted in favour, the reasons are as follows.

Despite what you will hear from the Tories, AVDC & BCC are not setting 0% budget change this year, they are setting 2.5% increases in spending and being given a bung from the Government (paid for by your national taxes) to ensure they return a 0% Council Tax increase.   Aylesbury TC gets no such help from Central Government, ALL our funding comes from the Aylesbury Town council tax payer and we always keep this in mind and aim to be good custodians of your money.

AVDC & BCC are making massive cuts to the services they offer, this will undoubtedly lead to closures and loss of services that are important to residents and visitors to our town, under the localism agenda being pursued by the government these could be taken over by Aylesbury TC, but unless we have the financial muscle to do that the services could be lost, a small increase in council tax could allow ATC to save vital services.

The cost for a band D house per year council tax per year is about £50 to Aylesbury Town Council; a 2.5% increase would be just £1.25 a year, less than the cost of a Sunday newspaper.

I do understand just how perilous the local economy is at the moment, the loss of HBOS and other employers in the area has led to real hardship for many, but losing services unnecessarily when a very small increase in council tax could save them would just make a bad situation worse.

So we have no increase in the Aylesbury Town Council tax take, this has been achieved without any reduction in services currently provided by Aylesbury Town Council, without any reduction in the quality of the work we do, without any reduction in staff. When AVDC & BCC Tories start crowing about their headline 0%, just remember what they are losing to pay for that, staff and services cut to the bone, borrowing hand over fist to fund their vanity projects, Waitrose, Travelodge & the new offices at the Gateway,  the Oculus council chamber which didn’t even have a business case when presented to council, (your Liberal Democrat Councillors of course pointed this abject failing out to the Tories) these schemes simply shift the burden of risk onto the poor Council Tax payer, The National Enterprise Academy I can support, and will bring jobs and hopefully start some economic renewal in the town despite costing £7.7 million, as for the other schemes I really do hope nothing goes wrong, it could all backfire and we all know who would pick up the bill for that Tory failure.

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