Conservatives pledge to cut council tax by £1 million ahead of local elections in Sunderland
Written by Keith Bays on 30th March 2022
The Conservative Party has launched its local election manifesto at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens ahead of the local elections in May.
One of the pledges made by the party is to cut council tax by £1 million for the residents of Sunderland.
Leader of Sunderland Conservatives Coun Antony Mullen said: “This is a once in a generation election it is the first time in 50 years that there is a real chance that Labour could lose control of the council. If you vote Conservative and there is a Conservative-led council after May’s elections, there will be money off your council tax.”
Mullen added: “We would achieve the cut in council tax by cutting wasteful spending. The example I like to give is in Silksworth, the Councillors have spent £17,500 on moving a pit wheel from Washington to Silksworth which isn’t a good use of money. When you take all the examples of this kind of thing and add it up, you quickly get to the million that we need to cut the council tax.”
In response to Coun Mullen’s comments, Labour Coun Phillip Tye said: “The Labour group do not hold the majority in the committee that made that decision the Conservatives do. He needs to stop playing political games with the residents of the city.
“The cut of £1 million is not realistic and is just a typical tory policy of taking away from those most in need and continue giving to those that are rich; they slash and burn everything.”
The Conservatives were joined at their local election manifesto launch by Sedgefield MP Paul Howell to unveil their ten reasons to vote Conservative manifesto pamphlet.
The Sedgefield MP was buoyant about the party’s chances in Sunderland saying: “From what I have seen on the manifesto, there is a definite opportunity to take the council. It’s all about remaining positive, and it’s about giving people a positive message and taking those seats to get us there.
“You go back to Durham, we needed to take more than 20 seats across the county to get overall control, and it happened. Some fresh blood could do a lot of difference here as the people of Durham have also seen so I am very optimistic.”
