Boris Johnson is to slash the Metropolitan police’s spending by 10 per cent and reduce front-line fire cover to enable him to cut council tax bills by 7p a week.
The Mayor’s new budget proposes a £377 million cut in police activities, with community safety patrols slashed by £74 million and police pay and overtime down £212 million.
He is also cutting £15 million from front-line firefighting and community safety fire prevention work and will look to sell police and fire stations to raise cash. Last month the Standard revealed plans to reduce the number of police stations from 133 to 71.
Mr Johnson said the proposals — contained within his draft City Hall budget from April — would help hard-pressed Londoners by delivering his second successive council tax cut.
But critics attacked the 1.2 per cent tax reduction — alongside a package of spending cuts and a 4.2 per cent increase in transport fares — as an “insult to hard-working Londoners”.
Labour spokesman John Biggs said: “There are massive cuts going in and this cut in council tax is a minuscule amount, roughly 7p a week.”
Lib-Dem Stephen Knight said: “Instead of such meaningless gimmicks, the Mayor should focus his energies on keeping London’s fire and police stations open and keeping transport fares down.”
The budget, which is due to be ratified next month after consultation, shows the total cost of Mr Johnson’s empire will rise five per cent to £16.8 billion. Transport for London’s budget will rise eight per cent, with a pledge to deliver Crossrail and 600 new “Boris buses”. The fare rises will raise an extra £174 million from passengers in the new financial year.
Households in the benchmark Band D for council tax will pay £303 a year to City Hall, down from £306.72. The budget includes plans to freeze the tax at this rate for thepast two years of Mr Johnson’s second term, which ends in 2016. Londoners will continue to pay an average of £20 per household for the Olympics until 2017.
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Mr Johnson said: “Against a difficult economic background my planned budget will cut council tax while making significant strides in growing our economy, fighting crime and improving transport.”
The Mayor says the changes will ensure police numbers will “remain at or around 32,000” during his administration.
