Council Tax bills to rise to pay for police and fire service (From Ilkley Gazette)

Council Tax bills to rise to pay for police and fire service

3:00pm Friday 1st March 2013 in Local news

Council tax payers will have to pay 9.5 per cent and 3.8 per cent more to pay for the fire and rescue service and the police service respectively in West Yorkshire next financial year.

It follows two years of the precepts for both authorities being frozen, having taken advantage of Government grants which were on offer.

This time the fire and rescue service was granted special dispensation to increase its precept by up to £5 per household per year for band D properties in 2013/14. However, this still leaves West Yorkshire as the lowest cost fire and rescue service in the region and one of the lowest in the country.

The hike at the police service was agreed on the guarantee that the additional funding will be used to pay for more frontline police officers on the streets.

It equates to an extra £4.99 a year for band D households for the fire and rescue authority, and an extra 1p per household per day for the majority of households for the police authority.

The West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service precept for 2013/14 is as follows: band A – £38.27; band B – £44.64; band C – £51.02; band D – £57.40; band E – 70.16; band F – £82.91; band G – £95.67; and band H – £114.80.

The West Yorkshire Police Authority precept for 2013/14 is as follows: band A – £90.33; band B – £105.39; band C – £120.44; band D – £135.50; band E – £165.61; band F – £195.72; band G – £225.83; and band H – £271.00.