Leader of Bolton Conservatives, Cllr Nadim Muslim, explains what happened with Bolton's Budget:
Last Wednesday, councillors met to do a simple duty: set a budget for the year ahead. For me, the answer was common sense. For most others, it was not.
What followed was a display of arrogance and ignorance. A Labour Party so far removed from the people it claims to serve that it ignored them outright. Choosing instead to reach ever deeper into their pockets.
I entered politics to improve services, yes, but more importantly, to trust you, the people of Bolton, to spend your own money better than the council ever could. Yet Labour’s budget takes £12 million from local families over five years. Ask yourself: will they spend it better than you?
We talk endlessly of dying high streets. Draining £12 million from hardworking residents will not revive them. Letting people keep their money and spend it locally just might. And with Conservative plans to scrap business rates for most high-street retail and hospitality, jobs and livelihoods could truly be protected.
Despite this, Labour, backed by the Liberal Democrats and Greens, forced through the maximum 4.99 per cent council tax rise. A bitter betrayal from a party whose Prime Minister once promised a freeze. Another promise broken, alongside so many others.
I asked the leader of the council what his response would be to the residents who responded to the council’s consultation.
What would he say to the resident who said “Already struggling to live day to day life and if council tax goes up, then I won’t survive and will be in a financial crisis.”
What would he say to the working family with two young children who wrote, “There is absolutely no way we can afford an increas. We are on the brink of having to use food banks, and I am a teacher. It is degrading.”
And what would he say to the single parent who told us, “I am absolutely devastated by this increase. I have two children under two. Living costs are sky high already, and this will push us further into hardship.”
He had no response. These were not works of fiction. They were the voices of real people, speaking plainly and painfully about the reality of their lives. They were telling us that what this council proposes is wrong and that it risks the wellbeing, even the health, of their families. How, having heard this, could we justify such a stark rise in council tax?
And yet Labour councillors dismissed them, sneering that “only 712 people responded.” As if hardship only counts by the thousand. Consult, then ignore - that is their way.
Seventy per cent of respondents opposed the maximum rise. We listened. That is why Conservatives proposed a one per cent general levy increase, alongside the adult social care precept. Below inflation, fair, and responsible.
As we did every year we ran the council, we aimed for one of the lowest council tax rates in Greater Manchester. We did it before. We would do it again.
We set aside £1.8 million to fix roads and pavements – the public’s top priority. That money is now gone. And our roads will continue to crumble.
The elections in May are on opportunity. You have seen that Conservatives delivered lowered council tax every between 2019-2023. You have seen we repaired over 400 roads and pavements. You have seen we gave equal funding to every part of Bolton.
Now is not the time to use frustration to gamble on inexperience. Now is the time to restore experience, restraint, and common sense.
That choice lies only with Bolton Conservatives.
