Hereford votes to hold down local household tax

Hereford City Council voted last night not to increase the city’s so-called precept – in contrast to the main council tax rate in the county, which is to rise by 5 per cent.

Chairing a full city council meeting last night, Coun Kevin Tillett said: “A zero-percent increase has not been easy to achieve. We have done it by defunding the city CCTV from the demise of the city twinning association.”

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He added that the city’s twinning arrangements, with Dillenburg in Germany and Vierzon in France, “are now for individual groups to pursue, for which funding will be available”.

The city has also benefited from higher interest rates being paid on its reserves, and from a higher number of properties paying council tax, he said.

His Liberal Democrat colleague Coun Dan Powell said: “Families are struggling across Herefordshire and this is the best thing we can do for them.”

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This keeps the precept at £56.86 for the year for a typical band-D Hereford property, raising £942,800 for the city.

Coun Paul Stevens, chair of the council’s policy and resources committee, which had earlier approved the draft budget, said: “We felt it’s our duty to help the citizen as best we can at this difficult time.”

An amend he proposed to put half a million pounds aside for the Town Hall building, where the city council meets but which has a backlog of necessary repairs, was also passed.

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But the zero increase was not universally supported. Coun Jeremy Milln said it was “foolhardy, against the backdrop of inflation and also to assume interest rates will make up the difference, as base rates will likely fall”.

And his Green colleague Coun Diana Toynbee said that increasing the precept “by the cost of a cup of coffee or a bus fare would make a huge difference to our ambitions for the city”.

The vote to hold down the precept was passed by 13 votes to four with one abstention.

Herefordshire Council is expected to confirm a 4.99 per cent rise in the county's main council tax bill at a full meeting on February 9.