'We cannot keep asking the public for more and more money': Calderdale Council leader says maximum council tax rises 'unsustainable'

Coun Daniel Sutherland said his party, which won control of the council in May’s local elections, believed increasing council tax by the maximum amount allowed every year was not a sustainable situation.

“We cannot keep asking the public for more and more money at a time when they don’t have that money to spare,” he said.

He was speaking at a meeting of the council’s cabinet where members approved a new corporate plan, which will now go before the full council to vote on whether it should be adopted as policy.

Coun Sutherland (Illingworth and Mixenden) said the plan, if approved by full council, will shape the council’s direction for the next three years.

It was shaped by what residents had been telling his party on the doorstep, he added.

He said some capital schemes were being amended and some would not be going ahead to save money, and the budget ahead would include “significant savings".

Coun Sutherland, who was a Labour councillor for 15 years before he defected to Reform last year, accused the former Labour administration of “investing in the wrong direction” citing as an example cycle lanes.

“The ones in Halifax town centre, I have yet to see anybody use, that’s taken up millions of pounds of investment that could have been taken to more important matters,” he said.

Coun Sutherland said another guiding factor would be Calderdale’s economy, pledging a more “business friendly” approach to major schemes, citing the first part of now-completed major Halifax town centre work as having some business people “in tears” because of the impact on their businesses, claiming they felt they “were being just ignored”.

Other key elements of the plan include reducing crime and anti-social behaviour and improving cleanliness of neighbourhoods.

Care costs – for children’s and adults services – were very challenging, taking up 70 per cent of the council’s day-to-day revenue spending, but, said Coun Sutherland “what we need to ensure is the care we provide to our children and adults is of the quality that meets their needs and supports them to lead happy lives”.

Delivering the right care at the right price is the key, he said.