Council tax in Warwick district will be frozen for two years

People in Warwick district who live in a band D property will continue to pay £146.86 a year.

Warwick District Council’s chief executive discussed the review of the authority’s budget for the remainder of the financial year at a recent meeting.

Cllr Andrew Mobbs (Con, Kenilworth Park Hill) who is responsible for policy on finance told members the council had a surplus of £139,500 and it is now eight years in a row that the Conservative-led authority has had a surplus.

He said he had worked with officers on five-year rolling forecasts for the budget with recurrent savings of £1.975 million needed to be made by 2018/19.

Cllr Mobbs also said that despite the challenges there are no plans to cut services.

He added: “Our report in October will lay out our plans to continue to achieve these savings and I’m confident we will achieve them.”

Congratulating Cllr Mobbs and chief financial officer Mike Snow for their work, Cllr Michael Doody (Con, Radford Semele, the authority’s leader, said: “You also have to take into to account that our revenue support grant has been reduced every year and that has caused some problems but the have not been major problems. For the remainder of this council there will not be an increase in council tax.

“Some people would not accept it if we reduce services and they have to be at least as good as they are now and in a lot of cases they are better than they have been.”

The council’s revenue support grant from central Government has dropped from £11.5 million to £7.25 million over the last four years.