Letters to the Editor - Highlighting the headline tax obscures big picture

Published: 23 April, 2010

• AS per every election the Conservative Party leaflet has a graph with “band D” council tax comparing Westminster in this case with Labour Haringey and Liberal Democrat Kingston-upon-Thames all much higher.
Westminster band D is £687 and why not compare with adjacent Liberal Democrat and Conservative Camden which is £1,331.35 or Conservative Kensington & Chelsea which is £1,079.12?
Of course, the implication that a change in administration will lead to vastly higher council taxes as per the graph hardly holds water, since the voters would kick out any
new administration which doubled the council taxes.
As with governments the city council has other ways of raising revenue.
For example, residents’ parking at the Poland Street car park has gone up from £757 in 1993 to £1,804 this year which appears to be around 57 per cent above inflation.
It’s all very well (and effective) to highlight the headline tax but as usual the devil is in the detail including Westminster City Council’s relatively high level of government grant which is more than 80 per cent of its income.
DAVID BIEDA
Labour Party Candidate for West End ward