'DISCIPLE' (Citizen Letters last week) has got it completely wrong. I have not 'peddled' a figure of 21.1 per cent for the council tax rise this year.
That was in the budget projections for 2004/5 set by the previous MBI led administration - and proved to be an underestimate of what their spending plans implied.
The Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green coalition is working hard to reduce that figure substantially and I am confident we will be able to do so.
'Disciple' also says that a medium term financial strategy is not about keeping year on year council tax rises down. On the contrary, that is precisely what it is about. We will not make proposals that reduce the council tax increase in one year only to put it up the next. That is exactly what happened with Cllr Wilson's budget last year and we have no intention of repeating that.
We intend to produce a budget showing a downward trend in council tax rises for 2005/6 and 2006/7 and will work on producing further savings during the coming year to reduce those figures further.
Cllr Ian Barker, Leader, Lancaster City Council.
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