The town bracing for UK’s biggest council tax rise of almost 16%

Published

4 months ago

March 14, 2025

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The last thing I was expecting to discover on the doorstep of a Falkirk house was a 70-year-old woman crying at the near 16% council tax rise she and tens of thousands of others face next month.

Falkirk is bracing for the UK’s biggest hike in bills as the local authority faces a crisis of costs.

One councillor responsible for the increases has called in the police after receiving beheading taunts and threats of violence.

The area is facing its most difficult period in its 30-year history, while residents feel fragile and fobbed off.

Councils oversee the running of schools and social care, maintaining roads and collecting bins. They take charge of housing, swimming pools and libraries. The list is endless.

But Britain’s local authorities are cash-strapped and there are questions about how they should be funded in the long term.

Sky News went inside one Falkirk street to get a snapshot of the mood – and it was bleak.

We went door to door on Wilson Road and first stumbled across 70-year-old Catherine Mochar.

The unpaid carer was seemingly unaware of the upcoming changes to her bill and became visibly upset at the prospect of scraping together more cash in her already extremely stretched household budget.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said as her voice cracked.

Ms Mochar looks after her elderly sister and says her care package was revoked as the pensioner was deemed suitable to deal with the situation herself.

She says she is not entitled to a council tax exemption and worries about finding an extra 15.6%.

She said: “I am a pensioner. I don’t know where I am going to get it [the money] from. It is quite scary the thought of it.”

Round the corner from Catherine’s house, we meet a family who feel like they are paying more and getting less.

Claire Hamilton and William Reid have a three-year-old son and regularly use the local foodbank to make ends meet.

“It is going to become a choice between heating the house or paying council tax. Or getting food in and paying the council tax,” Claire says.

“It is quite a jump for not a lot in return. The collections on the bins keep getting longer and longer.”

She continues: “You want to do the best by your child and obviously they are not aware of all these stresses going on in the background.”

Council tax differs across UK

A drop in the frequency of bin collections is a moan people across the UK share and feeds into the narrative surrounding local services.

Council tax rates have been frozen or capped for much of the last two decades in Scotland, but this year the Scottish government has granted local leaders the power to go their own way.

In England, a principle exists which usually prevents more than a 5% increase to council tax without a referendum, mostly to protect taxpayers from excessive increases.

It is thought the average increase in England will not surpass last year’s total of 5.1%. There are some exemptions including Bradford which is hiking costs by 10%.

But Falkirk surpasses everyone and is the UK’s most extreme case.

Independent councillor Laura Murtagh initiated the idea of the 15.6% increase which was eventually voted through by most of her colleagues.

Councillor behind 15.6% rise calls in police

She stresses anything less than the increase she proposed would have resulted in services, including education provision, being slashed.

But it has come at a personal cost.

Ms Murtagh, who stresses she does not want to incite a further pile-on, tells Sky News she has contacted police after threats of violence and taunts online depicting beheadings.

She said: “It has made me not want to go out. It has made me not want to go to events.

“I am having a conversation with the police. They are nasty threats. There are people who have said you could do with a kicking or you could do with more than that.

“People are sharing memes where they are doing beheading memes or whatever.”

Local leaders say their rates have been much lower than their neighbours for many years which is unsustainable as demand for services soars.

The leader of Falkirk Council, Cecil Meiklejohn, was asked by Sky News if she could justify the 15.6% rise.

She said: “It is quite a hike. We always knew council tax needed to go up.

“We know that we have to continue to deliver good quality services, and we can’t do that without increasing our revenue and the only way we have the opportunity to do that locally is by increasing council tax.”

She concluded: “We will work with people who are going to be impacted by the increase.”

UK

Palace confirms dates of Trump’s state visit – as King and Queen to host him at Windsor Castle

Published

9 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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Palace confirms dates of Trump's state visit - as King and Queen to host him at Windsor Castle

The dates for Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK have been announced, with the US president due to be welcomed by the King from 17 to 19 September.

Buckingham Palace also confirmed that President Trump and first lady Melania will be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle.

It was expected that the three-day state visit would take place in September after Mr Trump let slip earlier in April that he believed that was when his second “fest” was being planned for.

Windsor was also anticipated to be the location after the US president told reporters in the Oval Office that the letter from the King said Windsor would be the setting. Refurbishment works at Buckingham Palace also meant that Windsor was used last week for French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit.

This will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, an unprecedented gesture towards an American leader, having previously been invited to Buckingham Palace in 2019.

He has also been to Windsor Castle before, in 2018, but despite the considerable military pageantry of the day, and some confusion around inspecting the guard, it was simply for tea with Queen Elizabeth II.

Further details of what will happen during the three-day visit in September will be announced in due course.

On Friday, Sky News revealed it is now unlikely that the US president will address parliament, usually an honour given to visiting heads of state as part of their visit. Some MPs had raised significant concerns about him being given the privilege.

But the House of Commons will not be sitting at the time of Mr Trump’s visit as it will rise for party conference season on the 16 September, meaning the president will not be able to speak in parliament as President Macron did during his state visit this week. However, the House of Lords will be sitting.

In February this year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer presented the US president with the letter from the King inviting him to visit during a meeting at the White House.

After reading it, Mr Trump said it was a “great, great honour”, adding “and that says at Windsor – that’s really something”.

In the letter, the King suggested they might meet at Balmoral or Dumfries House in Scotland first before the much grander state visit. However, it is understood that, although all options were explored, complexities in both the King and Mr Trump’s diaries meant it wasn’t possible.

This week, it emerged that Police Scotland are planning for a summer visit from the US president, which is likely to see him visit one or both of his golf clubs in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire, and require substantial policing resources and probably units to be called in from elsewhere in the UK.

Precedent for second-term US presidents, who have already made a state visit, is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.

UK

Fireball at Southend Airport after small plane crashes

Published

17 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Fireball at Southend Airport after small plane crashes

A small plane has crashed at Southend Airport in Essex.

Essex Police said it was at the scene of a “serious incident”.

Images posted online showed huge flames and a large cloud of black smoke, with one witness saying they saw a “fireball”.

A police statement said: “We were alerted shortly before 4pm to reports of a collision involving one 12-metre plane.

“We are working with all emergency services at the scene now and that work will be ongoing for several hours.

“We would please ask the public to avoid this area where possible while this work continues.”

It has been reported that the plane involved in the incident is a Beech B200 Super King Air.

According to flight-tracking service Flightradar, it took off at 3.48pm and was bound for Lelystad, a city in the Netherlands.

One man, who was at Southend Airport with his family around the time of the incident, said the aircraft “crashed headfirst into the ground”.

John Johnson said: “About three or four seconds after taking off, it started to bank heavily to its left, and then within a few seconds of that happening, it more or less inverted and crashed.

“There was a big fireball. Obviously, everybody was in shock in terms of witnessing it. All the kids saw it and the families saw it.”

Mr Johnson added that he phoned 999 to report the crash.

Southend Airport said the incident involved “a general aviation aircraft”.

Four flights scheduled to take off from Southend this afternoon were cancelled, according to its website.

Flightradar data shows two planes that had been due to land at Southend were diverted to nearby airports London Gatwick and London Stansted.

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said four crews, along with off-road vehicles, have attended the scene.

Four ambulances and four hazardous area response team vehicles are also at the airport, as well as an air ambulance, the East of England Ambulance Service said.

Its statement described the incident as “still developing”.

David Burton-Sampson, the MP for Southend West and Leigh, posted on social media: “I am aware of an incident at Southend Airport. Please keep away and allow the emergency services to do their work.

“My thoughts are with everyone involved.”

Local councillor Matt Dent said on X: “At present all I know is that a small plane has crashed at the airport. My thoughts are with all those involved, and with the emergency services currently responding to the incident.”

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UK

Heidi Alexander says ‘fairness’ will be government’s ‘guiding principle’ when it comes to taxes at next budget

Published

24 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Heidi Alexander says 'fairness' will be government's 'guiding principle' when it comes to taxes at next budget

Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.

Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.

Politics Hub: Catch up on the latest

Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.

Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.

“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”

Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.

“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”

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Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”

He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.

Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.

Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.

Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.

With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.

The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.