00:00Since Labour won power in the London borough in 2022, Wandsworth has frozen council tax rates for general services.
00:09But in the latest financial year, it has also increased a precept to fund social care by 2%,
00:15while the Greater London Authority has also increased tax intake in the borough.
00:21Two senior Conservative politicians, Lord Udney Lister and Sir Paul Beresford, the former MP for Mole Valley,
00:30argued in a letter to the UKSA that the borough could not make the claim to a frozen tax for
00:38four years running because of these tax increases.
00:42Responding to the concerns from the two men, UKSA Chief Miss Young warned in her letter to the authorities,
00:50Labour leader Simon Hogg, that it had not been clear enough in its communications.
00:56She said, we find it is likely that people would understand the term frozen to relate to an increase in
01:03their total council tax bill.
01:05The probe sparked by two senior Conservatives comes ahead of what is expected to be a hotly contested election in
01:13Wandsworth on the 7th of May.
01:15Labour overturned decades of Tory dominance in the borough when it won control in 2022.
01:22The Conservatives are hoping to undo this when voters go to the polls again this year.
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