A fair deal for Kingston
Posted by Edward Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, at 11:17, Tue 6 March 2007:
Kingston Council gets one of the worst grant settlements in the country. That has been the case for some time, which is why I have raised Kingston’s case many times before, such as when Ministers wanted to rewrite the map of Greater London and put Kingston into a group of east London boroughs in a way that would have cut our grant. Then, to be fair, Ministers listened to me. Yet Kingston still gets a low grant. In 2006-07, we received £210 per person in Government grant, whereas the average London borough got £493 — more than twice as much as us. If we got the same grant per resident as Hammersmith and Fulham, proudly cutting its council tax by 3 per cent, Kingston could cut its council tax by 80 per cent. From this historically bad situation, next year’s settlement is pushing the borough over the edge. That’s why I have raised our plight in a special debate in Parliament and was pleased when so many local people joined me at a rally in Parliament Square. Now I hope people will sign our new petition. The Council is now embarking on a programme to cut £22 million from its total budget - a shade over £100 million - over the next four years. Yet even this won’t be enough to bring down council tax. It’s time Kingston got a fair deal from central government.
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Posted by Andrew G.M. Wood, 14:45, Tue 6 March 2007: (Is this post abusive?) #
The message suggested signing the petition, but there's no info about how to do so!
Perhaps setup a petition at the No 10 petitions site and encourage Kingston residents who are online to go and sign it?
Otherwise, Yes. I agree. It does seem like Kingston is getting shafted, and had you said how I might sign a petition I would have done so, and encouraged friends and neighbours to do so.
Regards
Andy Wood