Norwich residents face a 2.05 per cent rise in the share of their council tax, with the city council warning of severe financial constraints in the next five years.
Tonight’s decision at City Hall means most households will see the city council part of their overall bill increase by around one penny a day in 2017-18.
Norwich City Council’s portion represents just 14 per cent of the overall council tax bill, with 73 per cent going to Norfolk County Council and 13 per cent going to the Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Norfolk.
Almost 1,000 people took part in a consultation about the authority’s budget, which has been set at £16.2 million for the coming financial year.
Of those who took part, 55.71 per cent were in favour of the proposed council tax rise in order to protect key services and 33.30 per cent were against it.
Savings of £1.9 million need to be found each year until 2022-23, totalling a net reduction of £9.6 million.
Councillor Alan Waters, leader of the council, said: “Very difficult decisions lay ahead for this authority because of the cuts to local government expenditure. This will impact heavily on vital services, as well as our ability to invest in the city.
“A successful city needs social as well as economic investment and government cuts year after year only jeopardise this.
“Our priority is to continue providing the services people in Norwich rely on and we need to identify different ways of working if we are to do that in the future. We had some very interesting feedback from people in our budget consultation and that will help inform our priorities as we try to focus the resources we do have on the right things.
“However, we will continue to fight for a fair deal for Norwich and encourage a change of thinking from central government.”
The city council element of the council tax bill will be:
Band A: £166.01 (increase of £3.33 per year)
Band B: £193.67 (increase of £3.89 per year)
Band C: £221.34 (increase of £4.44 per year)
Band D: £249.01 (increase of £5.00 per year)
Band E: £304.35 (increase of £6.11 per year)
Band F: £359.68 (increase of £7.22 per year)
Band G: £415.02 (increase of £8.33 per year)
- More articles in the press release archive
- Norwich City Council press release RSS feed
