Leeds City Council has proposed a 4.99% council tax increase as it faces a “dire” financial position, with the authority needing to save £58.4m over the next 12 months, alongside £7.4m of already agreed savings.
The Yorkshire Evening Post asked people on the streets of Leeds for their reactions to the proposed council tax rise.
The Yorkshire Evening Post asked people on the streets of Leeds for their reactions to the proposed council tax rise.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 So Leeds City Council is proposing a 5% council tax increase from April
00:05 and that comes at a time when they're ending the lease on a popular museum,
00:08 they're closing council buildings and they're also introducing car parking charges
00:13 at places like Ranshay Park and these are all proposed measures, they're not definite yet.
00:18 But what's your thoughts on a council tax increase with that in mind?
00:21 Yeah I would rather it went on, yeah I'd rather it went on decent things, facilities,
00:27 people to use, libraries closing massive, you know they're getting more and more popular,
00:32 I think we need to preserve those but at the same time if you've got a good service from the council
00:36 and the bins and everything then you don't mind paying the money and the upkeep, I think it's
00:40 that balance they've got to do and if you look around everything's increasing, if you go from
00:44 a price of a pang to food it's gone by a lot more than five percent so I think it's unfortunate it's
00:48 to be expected and I'll just suck it up. So Leeds City Council is proposing a 4.99%
00:55 council tax increase from April and that comes as they are also proposing doing things like
01:02 introducing car parking charges in places like Ranshay Park and Temple Newsome and they're
01:06 closing council buildings is one of the other things they're proposing, care homes they're
01:12 talking about closing. What are your thoughts on paying five percent more council tax when
01:16 potentially you might be getting less for that money? Well I'm not particularly happy with that
01:22 because I also use Ranshay Park as well for walking the dog and then that's going to add
01:26 parking on to that so I won't use it and I don't actually live in that area but it's just somewhere
01:32 different to go and take the dog. So you'd be driving there normally wouldn't you? Yeah I would
01:36 normally be driving there and so I'd probably just end up staying local so that's you know not great
01:43 and any increase like in current climate is not great is it? My council taxes are already
01:48 astronomical so yeah that's not great if I'm honest. Not pleased to hear that. So Leeds City
01:55 Council is proposing a five percent tax increase from April how would you feel about paying more
02:01 tax considering that there's more strains on local authorities to pay for services and you
02:05 might end up getting less for your money? Not happy, not happy at all. It's ridiculous we already
02:11 pay a fortune and you don't see anything for it your bins barely get collected on time never mind
02:17 everything else. You should look to where they're actually spending the money. Yeah
02:24 exactly like what do we see yeah not good.