Mayor makes council tax pledge for first term

The newly-elected East Midlands metro mayor has ruled out bringing in an extra portion of council tax during her first term.

Labour's Claire Ward was elected earlier this month with a range of powers including transport, skills and housing.

Ms Ward also has the power to raise money from residents through a mayoral precept added on to council tax bills.

But speaking to the BBC, the mayor said no precepts would be introduced during the first four-year term.

The East Midlands Combined County Authority includes all of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with a budget of £1.14bn over 30 years.

A number of mayoral regions - including Greater Manchester - have a precept on people's bills.

Residents in Greater Manchester pay about £21 a year extra under the mayoral precept for anyone living in a Band A property.

This does not include funding for police and fire services but does pay for a £2 bus fare cap, a project to provide a bed and additional mental health support to the homeless, and its bus franchising model - the Bee Network.

"What we need to do in this term is to build the organisation, use the money and the powers that we've been given, get more devolution if we can," Ms Ward told the BBC.

"But we need to make sure we make the case for this [mayoral role] and that people understand what that is.

"The way to do that is by not launching a mayoral precept in that first term of office - I don't think we need to do that.

"We've got a huge amount to do when we had 27% of people coming out to vote so I want to raise the profile and I want people to see a difference.

"But people are realistic - they know we can't solve all of the problems overnight or even in four years. We are still unpacking computers out of their boxes."

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