MY RESPONSE TO FULL COUNCIL TODAY ON THE BUDGET

The Labour decision today to increase council tax by 3.94% in Durham and 4.75% in Easington is a broken promise on last years bid. The new authority as the leader said today still intends to make £21m of savings but they have still gone ahead with these increases.

Even worse than this is that they received support from many of the Conservatives and most of the Independents, though credit to Watts Stelling of the Derwentside independents for supporting our proposals.

We did not propose to touch general reserves as can be seen in the post below which details our proposal, but instead, like the Labour party recommended to use other reserves which they call “Earmarked” reserves but for which they could not give details of the use.

At a time when the economy is in dire straits, to take millions of pounds out of Durham residents’ pockets will further damage the economy both here and across the North East. They are not planning on spending the extra money raised – it is simply going to sit in the bank earning next to no interest.

Inefficiencies at county hall are rife. At a housing meeting this week, with the temperature in the room in the 80’s,  Labour members put the air conditioning on. It’s February. I can honestly say that I believe they have no feelings for the people of our county and look forward to an election to get rid of them both nationally and here in County Durham.

This is indeed a sad day for County Durham.

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