Blackburn with Darwen council tax set to be agreed (From Blackburn Citizen)

Building Schools for the Future programme?

Is that the crazy PFI farce that the council is stuck with, where they are paying for half empty schools they don't need?

You'd think the hospital farce would have warned people about such folly... but no.. not our council.

The Building Schools for the Future programme matched the number of children with the number of schools nearly ten years ago (and, because they were secondary school, the number of children in ten years time was easy to count).

What no-one forsaw ten years ago was a government that encouraged the opening of new 'free' schools. In effect the government has put another 1000 place school in Blackburn. So of course there are spare places in the system. But that is hardly the Council's fault.

It's about time the council tax bands were reviewed. They haven't changed for 20 years. Those on the lowest band are still on the lowest band, along with householders who should be three or four bands above them by now. And although many more people are now on the £320,000 top band, they're obviously not paying their fair whack.

happycyclist wrote:
It's about time the council tax bands were reviewed. They haven't changed for 20 years. Those on the lowest band are still on the lowest band, along with householders who should be three or four bands above them by now. And although many more people are now on the £320,000 top band, they're obviously not paying their fair whack.

If someone in a £320k house has their bins emptied once a week and someone in a £100k house has theirs emptied once a week, why should they pay more council tax for the same service

sharonAccy wrote:

happycyclist wrote:
It's about time the council tax bands were reviewed. They haven't changed for 20 years. Those on the lowest band are still on the lowest band, along with householders who should be three or four bands above them by now. And although many more people are now on the £320,000 top band, they're obviously not paying their fair whack.

If someone in a £320k house has their bins emptied once a week and someone in a £100k house has theirs emptied once a week, why should they pay more council tax for the same service

So we should all pay the same level of income tax?

This sort of arrangement is why the richest 10% of the population have 90% of the wealth, but only pay 40% of the taxes. Whereas the other 90% only have 10% of the wealth but pay 60% of the taxes.

sharonAccy wrote:

happycyclist wrote:
It's about time the council tax bands were reviewed. They haven't changed for 20 years. Those on the lowest band are still on the lowest band, along with householders who should be three or four bands above them by now. And although many more people are now on the £320,000 top band, they're obviously not paying their fair whack.

If someone in a £320k house has their bins emptied once a week and someone in a £100k house has theirs emptied once a week, why should they pay more council tax for the same service

Because the bin lorry has to travel further up the drive to their estate than it does to pick up a row of bins behind a terrace row or a big communal bin for a block of flats. Rich people generally have more rubbish, too, because they buy more things.