Residents ‘will not’ face council tax rise to fund new East Midlands council and mayor

Coun Ben Bradley, council leader, member for Mansfield North and Mansfield MP, made the comments after papers suggested the new authority could be paid for through a mayoral precept or a ‘levy’ on councils.

The new East Midlands combined authority is due to be created by 2024, after local leaders signed a devolution deal with the Government.

The agreement will create an elected East Midlands mayor and mean Westminster would give more power to local politicians to make region-wide decisions on how areas like transport are run.

Documents outlining the plan state: “It is expected the costs will be met by either a mayoral precept on council tax bills, or a levy on the constituent councils.”

This led to concerns the move will lead to current authorities either increasing their council tax bills to fund it, or ‘cutting services’.

Coun Bradley has long supported East Midlands devolution, but said there are no plans to increase council tax through the deal.

The document also reveals a transport plan will be drawn up as one of the first tasks of the authority, which is expected to be created in ‘shadow’ format from April, before a mayoral election in 2024.

Speaking on how the authority will be funded, Coun Bradley, who has refused to rule out running for the mayoral role, says he doesn’t ‘expect a tax increase’ and it is something local leaders have agreed on ‘not doing’.

He described the council tax wording in the devolution document as ‘unhelpful’ and said the city and county councils will contribute to the operations of the new combined authority on top of Government support.

He said: “It’s not helpful phrasing, but I don’t expect a tax increase for that purpose.

“It’s likely councils will contribute to running costs, although the first two years are funded by Government and we’ll push for that to continue for longer.

“The aim is to utilise as much existing resource as possible and keep the costs as light as we can. Residents shouldn’t expect a mayoral precept or levy to fund it. We’re not doing that.”

He said the authority running costs are expected to be about £750,000, which would be split between the city and county councils. He described this as ‘not a huge amount of money’ for them to share, with existing staffing to be used for running the body.

However, his comments and the document wording have sparked concerns from Coun Jason Zadrozny, Ashfield Council leader.

He said: “Coun Bradley cannot guarantee council tax won’t go up. If he wants to declare plans to stand as mayor, his opinion would hold more relevance and be binding on him.

“Therefore, this is all a smoke-and-mirror game. If it’s levied from councils, rather than directly through the precept, those councils have to either be cutting services, or raising their own precept to fund it.

“It is inevitable council tax will go up at the time residents can least afford it.”

Leaders are expected to approve a public consultation on devolution in the coming weeks, to run from November 14-January 9 and give residents the opportunity to have their say on the plans.