MARK Jenkinson MP is calling for Cumberland Council to refund residents’ council tax after five months of Labour bin chaos.
Constituents living in the Allerdale area faced 19 weeks of disruption to services when the local authority failed to pay binmen the same rate across the new council area despite warnings, prompting strike action.
The reduction on services came on top of an almost seven per cent hike in council tax – among the highest in the country.
An agreement was finally reached last week but the MP has insisted that Cumberland council could have resolved this far sooner. Despite the resolution, disruption looks set to continue into September with the council still yet to announce the resumption of paper and cardboard collections.
Mark has written the council leader asking him to refund this year's increase across Allerdale, and has also launched a petition which garnered several hundred signatures in the first twelve hours.
Mark said: “This campaign is not something I have undertaken lightly. However, I cannot stand idly by whilst this council hold the residents of Allerdale to ransom – making them pay more for less as far as services are concerned.
“A refund would go some way towards making amends for the huge and entirely avoidable misery which they have heaped on my constituents.
“In 2019, Labour wanted a refund for just two months disruption after they caused the first round of bin chaos.
“My constituents have now had five months of disruption, dragged out needlessly by the council only to end up where they should have been in April.
“In 2019, the then Conservative council recognised that residents had had both Labour’s maximum council tax increase and significant disruption to services. So in April 2020 their council tax rise was just £2/year on a band D property.
In April 2023, despite the cost-of-living pressures faced by all of my constituents, Cumberland's Labour executive chose to hike council tax for Allerdale residents by 6.7 per cent, almost the highest rate in England – a £110/year increase.
“Since then, all residents have had to show for it is cancelled recycling collections; huge disruption to domestic waste collections; cuts to frontline services; a significant decline in the tidiness of our town centres; a proliferation of weeds; and the cancellation of levelling-up projects, such as the Maryport swimming pool funded by our Conservative government.”
