Dartford continues to have the lowest Council Tax of any Borough or District in Kent and as residents might notice, it’s one thing to PROMISE a Council that’s efficient, low tax and driven by common sense, but quite another to DELIVER one!
Here in Dartford, I think we have pretty much set the blueprint for a local council that carries on delivering the services taxpayers want - no cuts, not closures - but STILL keeps Council Tax lower than all the other local authorities around us.
Year after year, we manage to buck the trend when all the councils around us are imposing rises at, or near, the limit of what the Government will allow. In fact, it doesn’t actually matter much to us (or you) if a Government sets a limit of 3%, 5% or even 10% - because we simply don’t want to raise our tax by that much anyway.
The low bills you receive from us aren’t an accident, a coincidence, or a one-off. We do it year after year.
We never know what Council Tax nearby local councils or KCC will set until their final budgets in the Spring, but if history is anything to go by the final figures will be set at, or close to, the maximum they are allowed by law - that’s 3 or 5%.
Once again, we believe that for the time being, we can continue to deliver all the services you tell us you support without raising tax by the maximum. We are still working on our budget but it looks as though we may be able to hold rises to something like 2%, that's well below the current inflation rate.
So, the good news is that we are likely to remain the Borough Council with the lowest Council Tax in Kent, and open a wider gap between our bills and others in the county.
The future is less certain because the Government has announced plans to re-organise local government and wants to see larger, single authorities replace councils like Dartford Borough Council.
I won’t hide from you that I think that dissolving truly local and successful councils like Dartford Borough Council is the wrong thing to do, but the Government has taken its decision and all we can do is carry on delivering the services we deliver, for the low Council Tax we set, to the residents we care about, until the new larger councils are created. Our Members have sent a suggestion to Government that if the structure and boundaries of local councils ARE to be redrawn, then the new Council for this area should at least cover an area with a logical local local connection - that means broadly speaking the towns of Dartford, Gravesham and the west of Medway - and we will find out by mid 2026 what the Government decides.
Amongst all this uncertainty we look forward to another year of good services, no cuts and more common-sense decision making.
Please respond to our simple budget consultation by February 10.
Thank you.
Jeremy Kite MBE
Leader of Dartford Borough Council
