St Neots Does Pay More Tax - No it doesn't.

There is a letter in this week News and Crier, from Lorraine Hinds, defending Jon Mountford's original letter about the amount of Council Tax paid to HDC. Now as Jon was having a go at HDC I will take a look at the HDC element of the Council Tax bill. I've used the following information: Agenda for Corporate Governance Panel and from Fenland DC.

St Neots Council Tax base is: 10195 x £124.17 Band D = £1,265,913.15 the amount paid to HDC

I looked at Fenland District and found the following:

March: 7050 x £241.56 = £1,702,998.00

Whittlesey: 5377 x £241.56 = £1,298,868.12

Wisbech: 6898 x £241.56 = £1,666,280.88

So all these 3 towns pay more in council tax to Fenland District Council than we do in St. Neots to HDC. So Jon and Lorraine are wrong on this point. Wildly wrong.

Lorraine then goes on to tell us about the following:

Job Centre - Labour Government

Court - Government

registrar - County Council

No Cash Payment Office - District Council

Toilet closure - District Council

Free Parking - District Council

The Day Centre - County/NHS

Skill Campus - Government

"...but it seems we in St Neots just serve them with more and more revenue which they incompetently waste."

Lorraine goes onto have a go at Mr Jennings for highlighting what is here. But Jon Mountfort said there were no facilities!

Sorry, what is HDC wasting all this money on? The problem behind all this is the £6.1 million of cuts due because HDC has been providing services which it cannot actually afford. St Neots is not a cash cow. All in Huntingdonshire are living on diminishing reserves.

If we keep looking at Huntingdon as to what is going on we will miss out here in St Neots. I agree that bringing more services locally would be better. But it will be far more expensive to do.