Mid Ulster councillors turn down 7.4% rates increase recommendation

Council chief executive, Adrian McCreesh, strongly recommended the figure arrived at by the council’s finance team.

“The rates estimate recommended – the non-domestic and domestic rate – is at 7.4%,” he said.

“At that rate I’m satisfied that we can deliver the range of services that I know is important to both our community and indeed our elected members.

“I’m also very conscious that there are uncertainties in the year ahead, and we have to manage our accounts and our finances very carefully.

“We’ve tried to be prudent and estimated not what we would like to [see] happen, but what we anticipate is more likely to happen.

“I’m satisfied that the proposed rates estimates are sufficiently robust to enable Mid Ulster Council to deliver services for 2024-25.”

Director of finance, Mr J. J. Tohill, echoed the chief executive’s assessment in recommending a 7.4% rates increase.

“We are recommending a rates increase of 7.4%, which would be the the rate increase of both the domestic rate and the non-domestic rate,” he said.

“We feel that if the council strikes that rate, the council will be reasonably well placed to face the challenges of the incoming financial year.

“And I say ‘reasonably’, because if anything that the past two years has shown, it is that nothing is certain and that we’re more likely to face difficult times than times of plenty.”

Many councillors, however, felt that a lower figure could have been arrived at, including Councillor Paul McLean (DUP, Magherafelt DEA), who made the following case for a 5.9% increase.

“Within my own party we have spent quite a bit of time going through the process, especially my colleague Wesley [Brown] who’s my number cruncher on this occasion,” said Cllr McLean.

“We have come up with our own conclusions. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. There are many people within our Mid Ulster constituency that have a good quality of lifestyle and have a good earning, and that’s because of our entrepreneurship.

“But there are a lot of families within our communities and within our district that are living on the breadline, and therefore it would be rash and reckless not to consider those people. Any increase at all would put them beyond the pale, as it were.

“We’re also aware that for not to increase would be stupid, because inflationary costs have to be factored in. Having factored all that and having put that all into the mix, we have gone through our figures and we have taken monies out of different pots that we believe could still be squeezed a little bit.

“As officers you felt that our proposals were either too tight or that you couldn’t live with them, however we’ll have to agree to disagree on that issue, and therefore tonight we are proposing from our party group that we should come in at 5.9% of a rate.”

Councillor Trevor Wilson (UUP, Cookstown DEA) said he too was in favour of a similar figure.

“After discussions that we’ve had with J. J. [Tohill], we too feel that there could be the possibility of reducing that rate from 7.4% down to just above the rate of inflation, around 6%, which is not far off what Paul has proposed there,” he said.

“There are a number of items that we could look at cutting back slightly, and we don’t need to cut back that much because we have put additional funding into the community grants.

“You’ve heard me on numerous occasions propose that this council is not in a position at the moment to bid for any strategic events, whether it be sporting or theatre or arts, or whatever it is.

“We are one of the councils with the lowest borrowing and on occasions like this we feel that we could borrow against some of that to lower the rate.”

A vote was taken on the initial proposal, with 32 councillors voting in favour of a 5.9% rates increase, and seven against.