Residents of a Bromsgrove parish are facing a 37% rise in the council tax – even though the council don’t want the money!

And now the big question in Catshill and North Marlbrook is what are we going to spend it on?

The parish council had wanted a modest 2.23% rise but somehow the 37% figure was sent to Bromsgrove District Council (BDC), who compile the council tax demands.

By the time the error was spotted the cost of ripping up and re-doing the demands would have been more than the extra cash, so instead the council have ‘reluctantly’ decided to stick with it – and issue an apology to residents.

Instead of an average increase of just under 50p in the parish element of the council tax, the rise is now around £8.50 for the year.

The issue of the 37% rise was raised publicly by the Conservative group on the district council, who issued a press statement decrying the big increase.

But an apologetic chairman of the parish council, Bernard McEldowney, stressed the council had NOT voted for a 37% increase.

“It would appear that an error was made when our figures were submitted to BDC.

“We had been trying to get this error resolved since we became aware of it.

Bromsgrove Advertiser:

“Because BDC had already processed their council tax bills for 2021/22, which are due to be sent out in the very near future, we had been quoted a significant charge to get the bills amended to reflect the much smaller precept which we had voted for.

“We have reluctantly had to accept that it would be a disproportionate use of our limited parish council funds”

He said lessons needed to be learned about how this went wrong

The original bill would have brought in a total of £52,200 for the Parish Council for 20021/22. Now they will get an estimated £71,000 instead.

The council plans to ask for suggestions from local people about what to do with the extra £19,000

“I do not want the money to be left lying in a bank account for the foreseeable future. We intend to spend it during the next financial year for the benefit of all of our local residents.

“We apologise to all of our local residents for this unfortunate state of affairs.”

The council tax is made up of demands from county, district and parish councils, plus police and fire services. The average bill across Bromsgrove for the coming year is £1,933