Liberals Desperate To Increase Aberdeenshire Council Tax
>> 9 February 2012
Lib Dem and Conservative councillors who form the administration of Aberdeenshire Council signalled their clear desire to increase the council tax at today’s Budget Meeting.
SNP councillors backed the Scottish Government’s continued freeze on council tax rises, aimed at protecting hard-working families during these difficult economic times. However, a succession of Lib Dem and Conservative councillors – backed by Green Party member Martin Ford – lined up to condemn the popular policy, in spite of Aberdeenshire Council recording an underspend each year for the past five years.
“The clear message from today’s Budget Meeting is that if it were not for the election of an SNP Government last May, Aberdeenshire’s council tax-payers would have been faced with huge increases in their bills.
“The Conservative-Lib Dem administration made it clear today that they want to set an increased council tax to raise more funds. What I cannot understand is why they would wish to punish Aberdeenshire council tax-payers in this way when they had an underspend this financial year of over £5million. Where is the logic in that?
“Not for the first time Aberdeenshire Council has a budget underspend.
“While that is obviously preferable to having an overspend, it does beg the question why the Tories and Liberals in Aberdeenshire want to extract even more money from families at this time of economic hardship when the council has all this spare cash.”
