Town council tax payments to increase for Bognor residents

Town councillors agreed on Monday to increase their taxation of residents by 3.47 per cent from April.

This will take their precept, or share of the total council tax bill, to £779,169 for a rise of £33,125 on the current amount.

It puts up a band D property’s council tax payment to the council by £3.28 as one part of the total bill.

Cllr Adam Cunard, the Conservative chairman of the council’s policy and resources committee, said: “It is regrettable we are going to have to increase the precept this year.

“We managed to have a freeze last year after increases in years gone by.

“Part of the reason for this increase is that we have had to look at our staffing arrangements. We had to increase the staff wages because we had not done that for some years.

“We have also had to take on services from the district and county councils. We can’t keep on picking up the tab like that indefinitely because it’s still the taxpayer who pays.”

Labour Cllr Roger Nash said: “We continue to give value for money. The increase is well below the rate of inflation.

“But we need to look at how we can work better and work smarter to become even more effective.”

Cllr Paul Wells, for the Lib Dems, said: “Things are going up and there was bound to be an increase in the precept at some point. But we have managed to keep it to a very modest increase.”