How much you will pay in council tax from April as Bristol City Council agree rise

Council tax will rise by nearly 3% in Bristol after the latest city budget was passed by councillors at the second attempt.

The latest budget pans were in limbo after Mayor Marvin Rees postponed a decision to evaluate changes to the original proposals last month.

Opposition councillors and Mr Rees' administration have now arrived at a compromise, meaning the financial plans have been approved.

How much will Bristol City Council tax rise by?

Bristol City Council will rise its portion of council tax bills by 3% - the equivalent of £55.20 a year for the average 'Band D' property. There will also be smaller rises for the Avon and Somerset Police and Avon Fire Authority portions of people's bills.

It means the average 'Band D' property will pay £2,230.37 from April 1, while people in 'Band B' properties will pay £1,734.74.

At a meeting of Bristol City Council on Wednesday 2 March, Labour Mayor's Marvin Rees' alternative budget was approved.

It included some amendments put forward by the Green Party including keeping 30 minutes of free parking in residents' parking zones and scrapping Labour's initial proposal to charge for disabled parking bays.

The Conservative Party's request for Kingsweston Iron Bridge to be repaired was also approved.

"A budget for homes"

“This is a budget for homes, a budget for inclusion and a budget for decarbonisation. We are unapologetically ambitious," Mr Rees said.

“I’m pleased that councillors recognised that we incorporated cross-party proposals and voted across party lines to support this budget.

“There were, in total, 17 revisions to the budget initially put forward – these were sensible, well-reasoned spending proposals and I was happy to incorporate them into the budget.

“This budget is first and foremost a housing budget and includes £1.8billion worth of investment for Bristol’s council homes, which will see us build 2,000 council homes by 2028, spend £80million on making homes more energy efficient and provide funding for council tenants to upgrade their bathrooms.

“This budget passing means we can maintain the council tax reduction scheme at the 100 per cent rate, meaning 38,000 families don’t have to pay any council tax, and double the Local Crisis Prevention Fund – giving emergency grants to people in need of financial support.

“Frontline services and community assets such as schools, libraries, and children’s services remain protected and invested in, despite continued austerity.

“I am immensely proud of this budget and the fact we have managed to bridge the savings gap while protecting the city’s worst-off and investing huge sums of money in council homes.”

Cllr Heather Mack, leader of the main opposition Greens, said the revised budget had some positives but it excluded several of her group’s suggestions which full council had approved last time, including reopening public toilets.

She said: “It is fundamentally wrong to make deep cuts to services like those in this budget while also adding millions to the council’s reserves.”

Green Cllr Martin Fodor said the Conservative-Labour agreement was an “unholy alliance”, adding: “This isn’t a cross party budget, it’s a backroom deal budget where a Labour-Tory coalition seeks to bypass the actual representation across the city.”