Getting nearby counties to help pay for local drainage boards who should also set their own council tax levels are measures being called for by local councillors.
Currently 50 per cent of the council tax you pay to South Holland District Council goes to the drainage boards who serve South Holland.
In the 2020/21 financial year, that amounts to £2.5m with South Holland Drainage Board requesting a five per cent increase and North Level, Black Sluice and Welland and Deepings board a two per cent increase.
That increase is included in the district council’s share of the council tax.
Last week the authority announced it’s in the process of making savings totalling £872,000 in the next financial year including raising council tax by 2.83 per cent which works out at £4.95 a year for a Band D property.
But the council says it will receive just under £2.50 of that with the rest going to the drainage boards.
Now some councillors are calling on the drainage boards to set their own precepts (their share of the council tax) and that many areas that don’t have to pay drainage costs should pay those like South Holland that do.
SHDC’s deputy leader Nick Worth called on the council to lobby central government.
He told the authority’s Cabinet meeting last week: “I think tax payers out there need to be aware of how much this is in our budget and it’s an increasingly large amount.
“That’s by no means taking away from what the drainage board do as they do a fantastic job in South Holland in particular.
“It’s becoming a really big job but it’s an increasingly large cost for us.”
Coun Peter Coupland, the authority’s portfolio holder for finance, told The Voice authorities that don’t pay for drainage should help those like South Holland that do.
“It only affects a few areas. Not every district council has a drainage board levy as they don’t have the rivers we’re paying to drain.
“You think about the Nene at Sutton Bridge that goes all the way up to Northamptonshire. We’re dealing with water that’s not dropped in our district but elsewhere.
“That’s the unfairness of it. Northampton, Leicester, whatever should be paying us a bit to help get rid of it as it all ends up down here.
“It’s not a massive amount nationally, but it is £2.5m to us when we’re still looking to save £344,000. It’s pure cash that goes to the four drainage boards. They get very little funding from elsewhere.
“On anyone’s council tax bill it will say £150 to the district council but the drainage boards will take £75 of it.
“It’s a big cost to our budget of which we have no control.
“If they turn around and say they want a ten per cent rise, we can’t say no.
“We have to meet it. Not that we would want to stand in the way as they are well polished with money and they do a cracking job.”
