Revealed: The areas facing £500 council tax rises
Treasury documents released in June said local authorities would be able to put up their bills by the maximum 5 per cent for the next three years.
Now a breakdown of council tax rates has disclosed for the first time which areas are likely to fare worst.
The analysis by the TaxPayers' Alliance reveals that Gateshead faces the largest rise, with typical bills expected to be £567 higher there in 2028/29.
With maximum increases imposed, the bill for a Band D home would rise from £2,578 to £3,145.
Those in the most expensive Band H homes would see their bills rise £1,134 to £6,290, according to the TaxPayers' Alliance.
Large increases would also affect Nottingham (up £563 for Band D and £1,126 for Band H) Rutland (£550 and £1,100) and Bristol (£549 and £1,108).
Taxpayers in Dorset, Hastings, Oxford and Newark and Sherwood will also see increases of more than £500.
The highest council tax bills will be in Rutland, where charges will increase from £2,671 this year to £3,221. Band H ratepayers in England's smallest county will have to pay £6,442.
However, Rutland is subject to local government reorganisation and may be merged with another area by 2029.
Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Council tax is the ultimate stealth tax, given the way in which successive governments have piled on responsibilities to town halls without the resources to pay for them but with the permission to hike bills for residents.
'And this Government clearly intends to continue this trend by allowing years of above-inflation council tax rises, further increasing the crippling tax burden on British families and workers.
'By the end of this Parliament, the grim milestone of the first £3,000 Band D council tax bill will have been reached.
'Labour should impose lower, inflation-linked referendum caps on councils and aim for national solutions to crises such as that around social care.'
Ms Reeves announced as part of June's spending review that Home Office budgets would fall by 1.4 per cent over the next three years as she sought to balance the books.
The small print of the Treasury document said some of the shortfall in police funding this implied could be made up by increasing the police precept included in council tax bills.
On top of this, it said that local authorities would be able to increase their parts of council tax bills by 3 per cent, plus an extra 2 per cent if they provided adult social care.
These increases would be allowed for the next three years, the Treasury said.
Average Band D bill to rise £395
The imposition of maximum increases over three years implies that for Band D households, bills will go up by £395 after three years.
Average council tax is currently £2,280 – so the increase would put this up to £2,675. The largest Band H households would pay £5,350 on average.
But the TaxPayers' Alliance analysis shows that the situation will be even worse in areas which are already paying high council tax.
However, the shape of the local government map could change radically over the next three years.
Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, wants to get rid of district councils and merge their powers with that of county councils. She wants everywhere outside metropolitan areas to have a unitary authority with a population of around 500,000.
It means councils such as Rutland, with a population of just 41,000, will be merged into neighbouring authorities.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
I am a retired prison governor: Reform is the only party I trust on law and order
I am a retired prison governor. I was the governor at HMP Wormwood Scrubs for four years, and I served in the Prison Service for a total of 27 years. My mission with Reform UK is singular: to build a law and order taskforce that is equipped for Government, ready to crack down on crime and lock away the most dangerous offenders. I have never been a member of any political party. My involvement with Reform is not driven by political ambition, but by a deep commitment to cleaning up our streets and keeping Britons safe. That independence puts me in a unique position to recognise the decline of our criminal justice system and the alarming rise in crime free from partisan bias. With nearly 27 years of experience in this field, I believe that, together with Colin Sutton, we can lead a powerful and effective force to tackle crime, root out corruption, and fix our broken justice system. Throughout my time in law and order, the establishment parties have failed this country on a massive scale. Under successive governments, many crime statistics are rising. Attacks on prison officers are at record highs, with more than 10,000 assaults reported in just the last 12 months. Inside our prisons, the crisis is deepening. Incidents of drug finds have risen by 25 per cent in the past year, weapons finds have increased by 12 per cent, and mobile phone finds are up by 14 per cent. These are not isolated figures; they paint a clear picture of a justice system spiralling out of control, a system broken by the mismanagement of both Labour and the Conservatives. Neither the Tories nor Labour have put forward any real solution. Instead, they've quietly released tens of thousands of prisoners early, putting public safety at risk. They have ignored the voices of police, probation officers, prison staff, and the communities who deal with the consequences of their failures every day. Establishment politicians continue to pretend that Britain isn't becoming lawless, but we all know it is. This country bears no resemblance to what it was in my youth. Kids were playing in the streets, and theft was an unfortunate but incredibly seldom occurrence. We see the result of the establishment's policies on a daily basis: rampant criminality on the streets, repeat offenders facing little consequences, and our towns and cities becoming increasingly unsafe. Our prisons perform a necessary function in society: to protect the public, to punish, and of course, to rehabilitate. Under previous Tory and Labour governments, this has fallen by the wayside. We are now warehousing prisoners and releasing better criminals back into our communities. This has to change. The problem isn't beyond repair. It just requires a no tolerance attitude, a system where every crime is properly investigated, and one where the punishment actually fits the crime. What we have now is a system where people are serving lengthy sentences for social media posts, yet some criminals and sex offenders can walk free after a laughably short sentence. We need to send the message that the United Kingdom is a no nonsense place. One where laws are enforced, crimes are prosecuted, and anti-social behaviour is not tolerated. I believe Reform has been the only party vocal about the issue, and the only one willing to put politics aside for the betterment of the country. When I started at HMP Wormwood, I was assigned the task of cleaning up the D-wing. The D-wing was the worst of the worst, where the lifers were. It was dirty, rundown, and had a major drug problem. I carried out the job thoroughly, with zero tolerance for disrespect or disorderly behaviour. The governor at the time asked me to bring that same approach to every wing of the prison. Throughout my career in the prison system, I've maintained a no-nonsense, persistent stance toward crime and those who show contempt for the rules of society. I will bring that same determination and discipline to my role within Reform UK. We need to back the prison service, support its staff, and ensure our officers can do their jobs without fear. I believe Reform UK can help make that a reality and restore law and order across Britain. Above all, I'm proud to be part of a movement committed to restoring common sense and effective policing throughout the country. This is a party that prioritises the safety and freedom of every Briton.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Pushing airport expansion while rail travel languishes – so much for Labour's green agenda
August is peak flying time, and airports are on many minds. The government has signalled its support for colossal expansions, whose extra flights would bust its carbon pledges. The excuse is that supertechnology will magic away the extra CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, though it must know that clean, green flying is still futurology. Here's the pity of it: until now this government has rightly boasted of its green credentials, making massive investments in sustainable energy and retro-insulating cold homes. Expanding air travel is not on any green agenda. Heathrow has just submitted proposals for a £50bn third runway, as approved by Labour in 2009 and the Tories who voted it through parliament in 2018. Covid applied the brakes but now Heathrow is back with gold-plated, 'shovel-ready' plans. Its owners, including Qatar, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, expect the planning bill to prevent newts or judicial reviews blocking the runway. Their pitch to an investment-hungry government is that expanding Europe's busiest airport would create 100,000 new jobs, propelling growth with 750 extra daily flights. Flying gets a green light from the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander: she agreed to double the size of Luton airport, favours Gatwick's second runway for 100,000 more flights and gives Stansted's expansion a fair wind. These allow a 70% increase in flights above 2018 levels, and cancel out all the carbon savings from the government's clean power plan. Rachel Reeves promised to be 'Britain's first green chancellor', but her plans live or die on growth, so billions in private investment is hard to resist. But beyond construction, the growth-potential claims for extra flights look highly dubious. The promised global 'connectivity' imagines business people zipping into Britain with briefcases full of contracts. But that's not who these extra flyers will be. Most will be frequent flyers flying more frequently, not for business but for leisure, according to the New Economics Foundation and Possible, the climate campaign. National Travel and Civil Aviation Authority passenger surveys show only one in 14 UK passengers are business travellers. The pandemic showed that meeting online saves money and time; business travel has already peaked. Would extra flights bring in tourist income? No, 70% of flights are British tourists off abroad to spend vastly more than foreigners spend here. Of extra flights in 20 years, 83% were taken by already frequent flyers, mostly for leisure. Growth will not be from more families taking an annual holiday: half the population doesn't fly in any year, while just 15% consume 70% of flights. Nearly a third are 'ultra-frequent flyers' taking six or more journeys a year. Instead of these heaviest users paying more for their pollution, airlines reward frequent flyers. The Flying Fair report from the New Economics Foundation suggests imposing a high levy on those flying six or more times a year, not added to ticket prices but raised in tax returns. That makes the cost of their excessive air travel highly visible, and could raise £6bn a year, while cutting aviation CO2 by 28%. Newly nationalised trains would gain from disincentivising flight. But UK prices are a bizarre deterrent. I'm planning to go to Edinburgh next week – a train journey I love. Checking prices, I found a £29.99 flight each way, while LNER costs £181.69 return. France has banned domestic flights where trains can do the journey in less than two and a half hours and so should we: start by banning airlines charging less than rail. Switch the 39m domestic journeys being made annually by plane to train. The good news is the extra potential capacity in the Channel tunnel, which could be realised with a little investment. Twelve trains an hour run each way, but the tunnel could run 2.5 times more, and prices would fall. That's where investment should go, instead of to airports, as new European routes open up. Yes, it takes longer. It means adding train time to the concept of a holiday. But if it were cheaper, what luxury it would be compared with the hell of holiday airports and flights that don't land you in city centres. Climate damage is the real cost of avoidable flying. The chancellor says: 'Expansion must be delivered in line with UK's legal, environmental and climate obligations.' But the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the government's statutory adviser, warns that airport expansion would breach UK carbon budgets for net zero emissions by 2050. The aviation industry and government claim that wonder technology will deliver carbon-free flying with electric planes, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) and carbon capture. None is anywhere near available, says the CCC, which expects 17% SAFs by 2040. It advises no extra flying before 2030, and only 2% more by 2035, to allow time for new technology to be developed. Let's hope clean flight arrives soon, but it's not here yet: currently, suppliers must only guarantee that SAFs comprises 2% of the total. Here's the honesty test for those claiming carbon-neutral flight is imminent: agree to no extra flying until it arrives. The government's mood music is all pro-flying, not urging climate-conscious travel. To change habits and attitudes, it should start by banning frequent flyer bonuses. Why allow private jets? Seat for seat they are 30 times more polluting, paying less tax as a proportion of ticket price, as was exposed by Possible's Jetting away with it report. The government's airport policy will reveal its seriousness on the climate crisis. Politically, it shows whether Labour is sufficiently alarmed by serious threats from the left, from Greens, Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn revivalists pledged to invest in trains, not airports. But refusing airport expansion allows Tories and Faragistes to add those lost foreign billions to their dishonest tally of net zero costs. A YouGov poll found that 61% of people regard airport expansion as the wrong priority, alongside mayors Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan. But the Treasury's dilemma is obvious: climate or cash? Its answer should also be clear: just call a moratorium until green flying arrives. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Investors ‘in limbo' over proposed share tax hikes, claim Tories
The Conservatives are urging Chancellor Rachel Reeves to urgently rule out increasing share taxes in the upcoming autumn budget. This pressure follows a leaked memo from Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, reportedly proposing several tax hikes. Proposed measures in the memo include removing the £500 dividend allowance, axing inheritance tax relief for AIM shares, and increasing dividend tax rates. The Tories argue investors are 'in limbo' over the changes, which would pull millions more into paying investment levies. Labour responded by criticising the Conservatives' economic record and highlighting their own efforts to support businesses.
