A West London council has been urged to freeze council tax next year as families struggle with the cost of living crisis.

It comes as Richmond Council’s finance committee was warned it faces uncomfortable choices over pressures on the authority’s own budget from rising inflation.

The authority has one of the highest council taxes in London.

Council tax rates for Richmond increased by 1.94 per cent this year, with the total charge for an average band D home in the borough set at £2,021.53 a year.

Conservative councillor Geoffrey Samuel asked the council’s finance committee on Monday (September 26) to announce a freeze on council tax next year to help residents.

He said: “It’s the kind of thing that will give confidence to people and make them feel that some of the uncertainty has been removed.” 

But Lib Dem councillor Robin Brown said the authority is in a “difficult place” due to the severe impact of inflation on council budgets.

He said the public sector is seeing “real-terms austerity”.

Richmond Council is facing a budget gap, before any further council tax increases, of £16.2 million in 2023/24.

Councillor Brown, the lead member on finance and resources, said: “Pretty much all of our budget gap is driven by this real, significant hike in inflation. We don’t know by how much we’re going to be able to put up council tax – the government’s not announced that yet. 

"We don’t know to what extent there’s going to be additional funding from government to recognise these extra inflationary pressures.

“But unfortunately all the noise that’s coming from government at the moment is that public spending budgets, not just for councils, but for schools, for the health service, for the police, will not be adjusted to take account of inflation so effectively what we’re seeing is real-terms austerity being imposed yet again on the public sector and that’s where we may be faced with some uncomfortable choices.

“I would far rather be in the position where we could carry on delivering the council services as we currently do and not put council tax up at all, but I suspect that’s not going to be the reality.”

He said the authority will likely have to increase council tax, use some reserves and carry out another savings programme.

The committee also approved £3 million from the council’s reserves to be used as emergency cash to help residents with the cost of living crisis.