North Northamptonshire Council approves 4.99 per cent council tax hike for 2023/24

All Northamptonshire residents will pay more council tax from April after North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) approved a 4.99 per cent hike in its budget.

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) approved its budget on Wednesday night with the same percentage rise, the maximum authorities can charge without calling a referendum.

NNC’s residents living in a Band D property will pay £1,657.51, an increase of £78.78 from 2022/23.

Cllr Lloyd Bunday, NNC’s executive member for finance, said although the planned budget will be balanced for 2023/24, it faces future spending gaps of nearly £18 million for 2024/25 and nearly £54 million for 2025/26.

Of next year’s rise, 2.99 per cent will pay for council tax and the other two per cent will pay for the authority’s adult social care precept.

Cllr Jason Smithers, NNC’s leader, said it was a budget other authorities will be ‘envious of’, and that it has ‘modernised local services’ following its formation in 2021 despite difficult financial circumstances.

The budget was passed with 41 councillors in support, 13 opposed and three abstentions.

Campaigners, who have secured more than 1,200 signatures on an online petition, asked councillors in vain to reverse a decision made earlier this month to distribute funding based on participation at NNC’s four maintained nurseries.

They are Pen Green in Corby, Croyland and Highfield, both in Wellingborough, and Ronald Tree in Kettering.

Adam Cooper, Pen Green’s chairman of governors, told NNC the result would be ‘levelling down’ at the centre.

Labour’s Cllr Zoe McGhee said the plan could result in the ‘dismantling’ of the centre and that she was ‘astounded by the proposal’.

NNC’s Labour group submitted four amendments, including a plan to give £250,000 to Pen Green in a grant, but all were rejected by the council.

Cllr Smithers said the authority will look to help Pen Green find alternative funding but that its policy will provide all children across North Northamptonshire with the same opportunities.

Other councillors said Labour’s proposal was too Corby-centric.

NNC’s deputy leader Cllr Helen Howell said: “It’s not taking away from Pen Green, it’s not about Corby, Corby, Corby all the time.

"It’s about the whole of North Northants, it’s about every single child.”