COUNCIL Tax in Coventry is set to rise by five per cent from April when residents will pay more for less.
Another £10million of annual cutbacks include to bin collections. General waste green lidded bin collections will become fortnightly.
Among services threatened by earlier pre-budget proposals but now saved are the city centre-based Job Shop – which gets unemployed people back to work – and the Shopmobility scheme, which helps disabled people to get round the city centre with scooters.
The Council Tax hike will put £63 a year on the average band D property from April, in the 2017/8 Budget plans announced today by the ruling Labour group.
The majority of that council tax rise – three per cent – will go to fund adult social care.
Councillor John Mutton, finance cabinet member, said the Council Tax rise would have been 1.9 per cent if the government had not effectively obliged councils to increase Council Tax to help meet the rising costs of caring for a growing elderly population through the adult social care budget.
He said the government since 2010 had cut £95million per year from Coventry City Council’s budget since 2010.
There have been hundreds of job losses since then, and a further 80 posts are expected to be deleted this year.
Coun Mutton accepting the Budget would see residents paying more for less, and added: “It’s the result of government austerity.
“They’ve taken £95million per year out of our grant, rising to £120million per year by 2020.
“If you’ve got less money coming in then obviously you have less money to spend, and that’s having an affect on our services.”
He said £1.2million had been found from additional Council Tax from more homes being built, and extra business rates. That has enabled the Labour group to avoid cuts to the Job Shop, Shopmobility and some street cleaning services, added Coun Mutton.
The bin collection service will change to an alternate weekly service, with brown and blue lidded bins for recycling collected fortnightly, and green lidded general waste being picked up every other week. Brown lidded bins can still be used for food waste.
The Labour group’s Budget is expected to be voted through at a full council meeting on February 21.
