Council tax to rise in North Devon but not parking charges

An average household can expect to pay £6.11 extra a year for services delivered by North Devon Council from April, but car parking charges in the district won’t go up.

However, the garden waste collection is likely to increase by £5 a year to £60 with a five per cent rise in allotment and cemetery fees, trade waste, sports pitches, pannier market and pre planning advice fees and dog waste bins.

North Devon’s strategy and resources committee approved a council tax rise of 2.99 per cent, the maximum district councils can charge without a referendum, and a hike in other fees to balance the budget for 2024/25. The full council is expected to accept the recommendations later this month.

It means Band D properties will pay £210.39 for North Devon’s element of the council tax, plus parish council charges and those set by the police (a 4 .95 per cent rise was agreed last week), fire service and Devon County Council.

Councillors congratulated chief finance officer Jon Trigg and his team for closing the £1 million budget gap without cutting services but recognised they would have to find ways of increasing income by 2026/27 as the budget shortfall is likely to be in the region of £3 million.

They were told that the council is ‘in a good financial position’ but faces ‘a cliff edge’ in two years time, mostly because of changes in how business rates are calculated and uncertainty over government funding levels.

Councillors heard that costs to house people in temporary accommodation had doubled since 2020, but the situation had been helped by the council purchasing its own properties which would eventually be used to address wider local housing needs.

The council now owns 61 properties for temporary accommodation, 27 more than in 2021, which it has borrowed money to buy.

“We are saving between £10,000 and £15,000 on what it costs to house someone in a B&B by putting them in one of our own homes,” said Mr Trigg.

He hoped the government’s Fair Funding Review which had been delayed by two years to 2026/27 would recognise it costs more to provide services in rural areas than urban ones.

The government has cut £40 million in funding for North Devon since 2010.

Council leader Ian Roome (Lib Dem, Barnstaple with Pilton) said it isn’t fair that people in rural areas pay 20 per cent or £112 more in council tax then their urban neighbours yet rural councils receive £142 a head less in government support.

Cllr Roome said until local authorities receive a four-year funding settlement again instead of ones covering a single year, they can’t plan ahead, and he hopes this might be the case with a possible change in government.