Although Boris Johnson has made great play of freezing the Council Tax (with rather less emphasis on increasing bus and Tube fares by 10%), he has another hidden charge for Brent residents which has got very little attention.
Changes to the way the Freedom Pass scheme is funded are likely to cost Brent residents much more to pay for it. Partly, this is because the emphasis is being shifted from the number of holders to the number of journeys they make. As Brent has lots of train stations, that hits us more badly than, say, Bromley. However, from 2010/2011 Boris is also trying to shift a greater proportion of the total cost on to London Boroughs (i.e. getting the Boroughs to do the dirty business of raising the money while he claims the credit for the nice bit of extending the use of the Freedom Pass).
Latest estimates by Brent suggest that our contribution will go up from £7 million now to more than £10 million by 2012/2013. That is roughly an extra £30 on Band D Council Tax.
The same Council Tax that Boris pledged to freeze.
Thanks Boris
No comments:
Post a Comment