A STINGING increase or good value for money?

As a mathematician, I’m always amused at the way politicians use percentage figures to beat their opponents about the head, because these are so misleading. The Lib Dems say Labour’s Otley precept for 2015/16 is an 11 per cent rise on last year. This sounds huge. The Otley share of the overall council tax bill will be £64.32. Last year (2014/15) the Otley share went DOWN to £57.98. The year before (2013/14) it was £69.89. So Band D householders are paying 10p a week less than they paid in 2013/14.

It makes most sense to look at the overall increase since Labour took control of the Town Council in 2011, and ask what Otley residents have got for that increase. Is it value for money? In 2011/12 the precept was £60.60. So the increase over four years is just under £4, or less than £1 a year. If the precept had increased in line with average inflation over four years it would now be higher at £66.96.

For under £1 a year rise, we now have the Core, a modern, central and fully accessible Town Council resource centre, with a meeting room available for hire, where you can get services and information; Gold-award-winning and fully staffed public toilets in the centre by the bus station; support for people looking for work, through the weekly Work Club started by volunteers in the Core; a Wharfedale-wide plan to seek funds and develop a cycle greenway from Pool to Menston; the ‘Voice Your Choice’ scheme where residents vote on which community projects get Town Council grants; Otley Neighbourhood Plan under way, along with a plan to study the impact of development on traffic; and many other new benefits.

A new range of efficient, useful and easily accessible services and projects from a Labour Town Council for less than £1 a year increase over 4 years seems pretty good value to me.

Dr Tony Cotton

Bloomfield Square, Otley

  • Note re calculations: tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi calculates mean inflation rates for 2011/12 to 2014/15 as 3.6 per cent, 2.7 per cent, 2 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively, averaging 2.4 per cent over that period.