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Council Tax 2004-2005 - Freddie Dawkins (25th Mar 2004 - 10:37:32) So, did you get your bill this morning? Our Council Tax has gone up by almost £110 this year compared to last. The largest part of the increase is for the Hampshire Constabulary - 11.4%. If you look at the Police Authority leaflet, it hardly makes a case for such a swingeing increase. I'm sure we are all delighted to know that we are paying £39.59 each, as Council Tax payers, to bolster the Police Pension Funds and to buy them lots of shiny new cars and TETRA masts! So, for a total of almost £200 a month, we get less Police presence and less Policemen; a rubbish bin collection every other week; and.....well, not much else to tell the truth. At least the Parish Precept has been kept down to an increase of 1.9% this year. I'd far rather pay a real Local Council Tax and know the people who are spending my money; and have the opportunity to fire them every 4 years if they get it wrong, rather than have a bloated bureaucracy in Winchester frittering it away on new BMWs and Volvos. Freddie Dawkins Parish Councillor

Re: Council Tax 2004-2005 - Alex Cameron (25th Mar 2004 - 11:01:28) Bearing in mind that Liphook is currently a conservative-held constituency, how much support is there for the Lib Dem idea of a local income tax? Who is the local Lib Dem candidate anyway? Or is it more a case of the lack of value for money?

Re: Council Tax 2004-2005 - Steve (25th Mar 2004 - 16:16:21) Didn't I post this?

Re: Council Tax 2004-2005 - Freddie Dawkins (26th Mar 2004 - 23:19:28) Alex - Bramshott & LIphook Parish Council is not political in an overt sense. All candidates in last year's non-election (apart from me) stood on a non-political ticket. I stood as the official Countryside Party candidate. Because only 12 of us actually filled in the forms and got them in on time, we were automatically elected and saved the Parish quite a few pennies by not having an election (though this by accident rather than design). But, most of the PCs do have political affiliation and some are or have been official mainstream party candidates in the past and are now at District level. But when I attended my first PC meeting last May, I realised it was going to be okay; several experienced hands told me that politics were left outside in the car park at this PC. And it works; we have lots of lively discussion and the majorities swing backwards and forward most of the time. I truly believe in local politics being fun as well as important and the personnel mix we have at the moment really is good. Do come along on Monday night if you can. Though we sometimes have to take some stuff private in exempt sessions of the PC (due to the rules we have to work by), we try and keep everything as transparent as we can and the annual meeting really is a chance to ask questions and put forward ideas on what we need and can improve on in the Parish. Oh yes, and there will be free wine, water and orange juice afterwards rgds Freddie

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