FAMILIES in the Suffolk Coastal area face a 4.9 per cent rise in their tax after councillors slashed hundreds of thousands of pounds from their budget.
FAMILIES in the Suffolk Coastal area face a 4.9 per cent rise in their tax after councillors slashed hundreds of thousands of pounds from their budget.
The district share of the council tax for a Band D property from April will be £119.88 compared with £114.30 currently, but a number of jobs will have to go to make that target.
It is another victory for the Evening Star's Cap the Tax campaign which has already forced the county council to keep its rise to only 3.9pc this time after the 18pc rise last year.
Members of Suffolk Coastal's finance and management review committee will be told the figures on February 12 and full council will be asked to approve them two weeks later once the final grant figures are known from Whitehall.
In the past two months senior councillors have managed to cut another £290,000 from the budget, pruning services and increasing income, in addition to hundreds of thousands already saved.
The most controversial element of the budget round has been the raising of car parking charges, which it is hoped will generate an extra £200,000.
More recent savings include deferring plans for electronic tourist information points, changes to the production of the council's Coastline magazine, deciding not to attend the Suffolk Show this year, and a review of maintenance of the buildings and grounds at the authority's Woodbridge headquarters.
Further staff reductions as part of changes to the way the councils runs will save another £150,000 - though details of these have not been fully decided as yet.
"Whilst every effort will be made to manage the change process to avoid redundancies this may not be possible in all cases," said a report by the council's corporate management team.
In a separate report, director of finance Peter Collicott warns that the future will not be easy for the council - and next year the authority is likely to again have to find savings of around £1 million.
n What do you think of a 4.9pc tax rise - has the council done well? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here