Council tax bills for North Lanarkshire householders will rise by three per cent from April 1.
The increase was agreed at the council’s annual virtual meeting to set its budget for 2022-23 – and is in addition to the previously-announced rise of 4.2 per cent to water charges.
It means the area’s band D rate for the next 12 months will be £1257.89, with residents’ council tax bills ranging between £838 for band A properties and £3081 for band H.
Both the Labour administration and SNP opposition had proposed the same three per cent rise, which will generate £4.6m in income and plug the authority’s remaining budget shortfall.
Conservative members had proposed a smaller two per cent increase; but the three per cent sum was agreed 60-7 in a vote after gaining the support of both of the larger parties plus independents.
North Lanarkshire’s increase is its fourth rise in five years, following a preceding decade of the charge having been frozen nationally.
Householders’ bills went up by three per cent in both 2018 and 2019, followed by the maximum permissible 4.84 per cent in 2020; but the cost was then frozen at that level last year as part of the authority’s Covid recovery budget strategy, a year after the first lockdown.
Councillors are spending Thursday in an online meeting to determine the authority’s budget for the year ahead.
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