RBWM is in financial difficulty – and considering a 25% increase in Council Tax. The problem is caused by years of ‘keeping the Council Tax low’ and some other issues. RBWM has the lowest Council Tax outside London – but the books still have to be balanced and that means increasing income and/or cutting expenditure. Looking to the future I calculated the possibility of increasing RBWM Council Tax by 10% every year – and then comparing it with Reading (for example) who may only raise their CT by 5%. According to my figures it would still take 8 years for RBWM to reach the Reading level of CT. Furthermore in the past RBWM saved money by reneging on the £53m flood defence partnership funding contribution towards the Environment Agency’s Channel One of the River Thames Scheme. This failure wasted £millions of development money. My concern is that RBWM has not accounted for the DHEFIM* partnership funding contribution – consequently this is history about to repeat itself. Are we about to lose the DHEFIM I ask?
*Datchet to Hythe End Flood Improvement Project is currently in development.