| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Proposed closure of Wandsworth Museum | |
| Posted by: | Malcolm Grimston | |
| Date/Time: | 12/01/07 09:42:00 |
| If I remember right the tax base is 116,750, so it would take an tax increase of about £3.40 at Band D to raise £400,000. Our problem is that to raise the £5 million we need just to stand still - i.e. no extra investment in energy savings or increased recycling, cutbacks on services because we are finding the tender market a bit tougher now than it was when tenders coming up for renewal now were last let and so on - would require about £43 on council tax Band D. But as you will know the governmant has said it will 'cap' any authority which raises taxes by more than 5% and it has used these powers several times. Our tax at present (ingnoring the Mayor's big fat wedge) is £354.80. So even if people had voted for a more profligate Party last May which wanted the highest taxes possible, they could only have put it up by £17.70, raising £2.07 million. Very large savings would still be needed. In fact I have no idea what we will have to do to council tax but we may well have to raise it to deal with the pressures we are facing. So the real question remains - is preservation of the Museum better than preserving current standards in recycling, street cleaning, education, social services or whatever? We can't consult on the basis 'do you want it or not', nor ignore our central manifesto promise of maintaining low taxes so that, as far as is consistent with services for the vulnerable and community leadership, people can decide for themselves whether they want a Museum or whatever rather than having the decision imposed upon them. I think I have made very clear that I will listen to anyone who can give me evidence that very large numbers of people in Wandsworth want the cuts to fall elsewhere - presumably the acid test is whether those people will dig into their pockets to find the £2 million to form a trust to take over the Museum and pay suitable rent on the premises. I can't see any flaw in this argument - if our judgment that the Museum is actually rather close to the top of the list of savings we must make is wrong, then there will be no difficulty in raising the sums. In the absence of such evidence we will take our decisions based on our judgment of effects on the community - it is what we were elected to do. |