Wealden District Council tax chaos continues as residents raise their concerns about potentially paying council tax three times over two months. Following unacceptable poor response by the Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour Coalition at Wealden District Council (WDC), Nusrat Ghani, MP for Sussex Weald, secured an urgent meeting with Green Party Council Leader Cllr Rachel Millward and the Labour Lead Member for Housing, Benefits, and Revenues Cllr Daniel Manvell to share the concerns of local residents who were adversely impacted by WDC’s early council tax collection.
Wealden District Council is led by a power-sharing coalition of Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour Councillors. It is disappointing that neither Cllr Partridge nor any other representative from the Liberal Democrats attended the meeting convened by Nusrat Ghani MP. It was confirmed that the Wealden District Council tax error has impacted over 17,500 households. It was unfortunate that upon hearing of the council tax error, the Council Leadership did not consider it an urgent matter and therefore not alerted councillors, local representatives and local residents immediately, so that they could prepare for the adverse impact of council tax being taken from their bank accounts earlier than expected.
Nusrat Ghani said: “It was disappointing that there was no representative from the Liberal Democrats present at the meeting, given that the Council is led by a coalition of power between the three parties. I raised my concerns with the Green Party Council Leader Cllr Rachel Millward about the lack of communication of the error to the public as well as to other Councillors and Members of Parliament so that we could assist in advising those affected. The Council’s investigation has no doubt taken more time and expense, when all we need is for politically elected leaders to crack on with the job they were elected to do. The Council just needs to be honest. If the Council Leadership acted with greater urgency and were open and transparent, they could have acted sooner and possibly prevented the payments being taken from residents’ bank accounts.”
If you have been impacted by the earlier tax collection date and have faced difficulties as a result, please know that there is support available, including packages of compensation.
You can get in touch with the council at [email protected] or call 01323 443 385.
