Labour’s Slash and Burn budget set to hit the least well off
York’s Liberal Democrat councillors have reacted with dismay to the ‘slash and burn’ budget proposals announced by Labour’s Council bosses.
Labour have today revealed that they are set to make £6.4 million of cuts in the 2025/26 budget. Their proposals include an unprecedented hiking of Car Park charges and an increase in the Green Bin Tax, whilst continuing their reduction in staffing costs that has already seen many of the Council’s frontline teams decimated. Other increases include a 28% jump in the cost of having white goods such as fridges and washing machines collected, and what appears to be a worrying 69% increase in the fee that the council will charge for the internment of ashes.
The budget also reveals that many of the savings agreed in the 2024/25 budget have yet to kick in, such as proposed cuts to library funding which attracted huge opposition, meaning that £1.7 million of cuts agreed last year are set to bite in 2025/26.
The budget also includes an increase in Council Tax to the maximum level allowed, despite Labour leader Councillor Douglas claiming in leaflets before the 2023 local elections that “York needs a Labour-run council to freeze your council tax.”
She later said “That was a national Labour Party commitment from Keir Starmer that was made in March 2023 to launch the local election campaign from our national party. He committed that if Labour was in government they would freeze council tax for a year and so that’s where it came from.”
Councillor Nigel Ayre said:
“It is shocking that, despite a clear local and national pledge by the Labour Party to freeze Council Tax, they are going ahead with the maximum increase. This is exactly the sort of broken promise that makes people lose faith in politics and politicians. Residents will be asking if there is anything Labour wouldn’t have said if they had thought it would help them to win votes?
“Labour’s slash and burn, austerity budget is the wrong direction for the Council. With a Labour Government, Labour Council, Labour Mayor and two Labour MPs, many York residents will struggle to see much difference between this lot and the previous incompetent Conservative Government.
“The devil will be in the detail of the papers and the Liberal Democrats will review all the proposals and put forward our alternative budget before the Budget Council meeting on the 27th February.”