The Government has proposed to steal more than £7 million from Cambridgeshire council tax payers in 2019 – yes take money from us rather than have it spent on essential local services!

Even more astonishing is the fact that Conservative councillors wanted to support their Government on this blatant raid on Town Hall money.

By then Government funding for Cambridgeshire will have stopped as part of a multi-year settlement which will see it fall from £15.3 million in 2017/18 to £3.9 million in 2018/19 to zero in 2019/20.

Luckily they didn’t have a majority of councillors at the General Purposes Committee on Tuesday and other councillors rallied around a joint Lib Dem/Labour response which was passed by nine votes to eight – the eight being all the Conservatives.

It said:

… refuse the multi-year settlement but argue the case that Cambridgeshire should not be disproportionately hit by funding reductions because of its current underfunding and its role as an engine of economic growth.