'Lazy and wrong': Councillors debate yearly £12 council tax hike over public transport

A new £12 mayoral precept will be added to council tax bills for people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough this year.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has approved the introduction of a Mayoral precept for the first time since the authority was created.

The additional money raised from the charge is planned to be used towards funding public transport in the region.

However, the Conservative Board members criticised the decision describing it as “lazy and wrong”.

When will the new change take place?

A report presented at the Board meeting on January 25 said the new charge was expected to raise £3.6million in 2023/24.

It said the precept was being proposed in response to the “pressure facing the Combined Authority across its supported bus services”.

The Combined Authority agreed to fund a number of bus services across the county last year that Stagecoach was planning to cut.

The report said that the cost of the new services was “considerably higher” than the services they replaced, due to increase in fuel, energy, and driver costs.

The report said: “Implementing a Mayoral precept, of £1 a month (£12 annually) on a Band D property, would help to safeguard the services which are critical for some residents of the Combined Authority to work, learn and participate in society for the medium-term, while the authority continues to develop the case for franchising in coordination with Greater Cambridge Partnership to incorporate the results of their work around Cambridge.”

How will the money work?

The funding would be “ringfenced” to support passenger transport services in the area and would not be used to support the authority’s core costs.

The Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Dr Nik Johnson is currently on a leave of absence on the advice of doctors.

A message from the Mayor was read out at the meeting in which he said the Combined Authority needed to create a transport system “residents in the region deserve”.

He added a decision to add a pound a month to council tax bills was not ‘taken lightly’, but said the proposed precept would “save for another year the bus routes that matter so much to our residents”.

The three Conservative board members voiced their opposition to introducing a Mayoral precept, and submitted an amendment calling for it not to be introduced.

They argued that the charge was not needed and that funding for the buses could be found in other ways, including cutting some projects, bringing forward savings, using reserves, and cutting 10 bus services that they said was costing the authority around £87 per return journey.

‘It is not wanted’

Councillor Chris Boden, leader of Fenland District Council, said the authority needed to “ensure best value” when spending public money on bus services.

He said: “There is no need for us to have a Mayoral precept this year, not only is it not needed, it is not wanted.”

Cllr Boden said the authority had “significant reserves” and had some “flexibility”, highlighting that a number of projects included in the budget had yet been formally approved.

He also highlighted that the majority of people who responded to the Combined Authority consultation on the proposed budget said they did not support the introduction of a Mayoral precept.

Councillor Anna Bailey, leader of East Cambridgeshire District Council, said: “Taking money from people’s pockets with the force of law, particularly in a cost of living crisis, while not doing everything possible to avoid it is lazy and wrong.

“The Combined Authority should live within its means and taxpayers should not pay for the failures of the Mayor.”

She said additional money from the Mayoral precept would not improve buses but would be used to “keep the status quo”.

Cllr Bailey said: “The purpose of devolvement is to receive powers and funding from government to implement decisions, it is not supposed to be a new method of taxing.”

Councillor Bridget Smith, leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, said the proposed amendment to cut 10 bus services was “heartless and uncaring”.

She said the majority of the buses on the list proposed to be cut in the amendment were in South Cambridgeshire, describing it as a “hit list”.

Cllr Smith said the precept was to pay for buses and said the Board knew that people wanted buses.

Elderly people ‘begging’ to keep bus services

She highlighted that they had heard from people about the consequences of not having buses, including young people not being able to get to school or places of work.She also said how she had received messages from elderly people “begging” her to help keep their bus services.

Cllr Smith said the Board had all been “outraged” by the Stagecoach cuts and had supported the temporary measure to fund some of the services. She said if the services were to continue then the “money has to come from somewhere”.

Councillor Lucy Nethsingha, leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, highlighted that the money the Combined Authority received from government was a cash settlement, which she said with inflation levels high meant the authority’s spending power was “reducing”.

She said if the authority was to only “manage on money it was given” it would “effectively have to do less and less every year”.

Cllr Nethsingha said she recognised the precept was a “new burden”, but said people recognised the need to change the way the public transport system worked.

She said: “It is an important step forward in a vision towards an area where public transport can be more reliable and more climate friendly.

“Most importantly of all for those who live in rural areas do not face constant increasing disadvantage, disadvantaged in getting education and work.”

The Conservative amendment failed to get enough support from all the Board members and was not adopted.

When the decision on introducing a Mayoral precept was put to a vote a majority of the Board voted in favour.

The breakdown of what this charge will be across the different Bands is: Band A £8, Band B £9.33, Band C £10,67, Band D £12, Band E £14.67, Band F £17.33, Band G £20, Band H £24.

It comes as Peterborough City Council is also proposing a 4.99 per cent increase beginning in April, or the new financial year.