Labour freezes council tax

Croydon North MP Steve Reed has welcomed the Council’s decision to freeze council tax for the coming year.  Labour councillors have vetoed any increase this year in a bid to help hard-working local people manage their household budgets.

Croydon Council was run by the Conservatives until May this year.  The Tories hiked up council tax at the height of the recession and used the proceeds to secretly pay themselves thousands of pounds in extra allowances while cutting frontline services.  They also rejected Government funding to protect weekly bin collections and instead reduced collections to fortnightly while local streets filled up with rubbish.

Steve Reed MP said: “Local households will be delighted to hear that Labour is freezing council tax.  The Tories forced it up to levels never before seen in Croydon so it’s a relief our newly elected Labour council has chosen to make the council more efficient rather than dip into people’s wallets and purses like the Tories did.”

He added: “I remain concerned that the Tories have not paid back the £11,000 secret pay one of their councillors took while pretending their allowances had been frozen.  If he won’t pay it back himself then I hope the Tories will repay it for him as this was public money budgeted to be spent on local services not to line Tory councillors’ pockets.”