Bedford Council Tax Goes Up

25 February 2010, 05:00

Council tax in Bedford Borough is going up by 2.37% from April 1st.

That means for an average Band D property there will be, on average, around £36 a year extra to pay.

Since taking over from the now defunct Bedfordshire County Council, officers and councillors at Bedford Borough Council say they have managed to make around £9m of savings to keep the increase as low as possible.

The Mayor of Bedford, Dave Hodgson said: "Considering what we took over, the savings we've made, and the fact that the budget was produced after 82 days of me being Mayor, I'm reasonably happy but there's lots of work still to do.

"We've taken over a toxic debt of about £90m.  We've got services which we were told were making a £400,000 profit, when they were actually making a £400,000 loss.  And it's those kinds of things that we weren't expecting which have shaped this budget."

You can listen to Mathew Williams' full interview with Mayor Hodgson by clicking here...

The full breakdown of Bedford Borough's Council Tax is below: