LONDON RATES

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 September 1938, Page 11

LONDON RATES

BURDEN ON BOROUGH COUNCILS The fear that, rising rates, together with the growing obligations thrust upon them by Parliament, may result in certain borough councils being compelled to reduce the standard of their services to the public is being expressed by many municipal government experts, states the “Sunday Observer.”

Several London boroughs are increasingly feeling the strain of the multifarious new duties forced upon them by Whitehall. Hampstead Council estimates that its responsibilities have been increased since the ‘war by more than SO Acts of Parliament and by 90 statutory orders and rules.

The result is that to-day Hampstead has direct control of only 25 per- cent, of the money collected in the borough as rates. In the current year- £683,000 will be handed over- by Hampstead for the London County Council and the Metropolitan Police. Westminster City Council’s figures are even more striking. In the current year, £5,257,600 will be paid by Westminster ratepayers. Of this, only £534,981 will be spent on the domestic municipal services of Westminster.

Of the huge balance, £515,570 goes to the Metropolitan Police, and no less than £4,207,049 to the L.C.C. The city of London is practically in the same position, and so to a great extent, are the corporations of Kensington, Chelsea, and St. Marylebone. “The situation is a very anxious one, not only in London, but in many boroughs throughout the country,” a municipal finance expert said. “This tendency to get local authorities to carry out more and more works out of the local rates has been growing out of all proportion, and the question should be asked whether the time has not now come when a halt should be called.

“The capacity of the people to pay for the additional services with which their councils are saddled is being severely strained, and it is time there was a breathing space, for councils appeal’ to be collecting money merely for others to spend. “In the aggregate, a great deal of administrative expenses is being incurred with the new services, and it would be well to see if much of this could not. be curtailed.”

Major R. Brown, of the London Municipal Society, confirming that the position is anything but reassuring, drew attention to the increasing debt of the L.C.C., despite the fact that the population of London in the administrative area is decreasing.

“To-day the net debt of the L.C.C. is £84,874,000, an increase of £11.977,000 in four years,” he said. “Yet the population of London is going down all the time. This is where there is genuine cause for alarm. “At the census of 1931 the population in the L.C.C. administrative area was 4,397,003. By the middle of 1936 it had dropped to 4,141,100. It is still falling.

“If the debt continues to increase there will he many fewer people in the future to pay not only the interest but to pay back the capital. “The aggregate debt in a return of a few days ago showed a figure of £154,584,359 as against. £149,929,072 a year previously, an increase in one year of £4,655,287. This was accounted for principally by housing. “In 1933-34, the last year of municipal reform government, £18,789,000 was raised in rates. For the current year the yield is to be £23,786,000. “With increasing expenditure and diminishing population the position, to say the least, is a disturbing one."