Council Tax To Rise - But Should it?

Hammersmith Town Hall

Hammersmith & Fulham Council says it will impose a 2.7% increase in our Council Tax bills from April 2019.

LBHF says the rise is needed because of "central government austerity and rising demand for services".

But is a tax rise really necessary? We think there is a better way.

How much extra will people pay?
The increase will be around £19.65 for a typical Band D property. However, as we have often argued in the past, there is no need for the Council to raise tax bills. They have plenty of assets they could sell to raise money, many of which - such as the Cecil French collection, serve no purpose at all.

Valuable assets in storage

Cupid Delivering Pysche (1867) by Burne-Jones.
Not on display.

LBHF continually tells us that they have no money, and they blame the Government's austerity policies for the lack of cash.

So why not sell a few valuable assets to help protect vital services?

Cecil French Collection
The Council owns the fifty-four works in the Cecil French Collection, donated to Fulham Borough Council in 1953, including pre-Raphaelite paintings by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and Frederic Leighton. 

The art is not on display, and cannot be viewed by the public. It is kept in storage and costs money to insure. What is the point of keeping it? Better surely to sell it to someone or something (such as the National Gallery?) who will show it, and release funds for local services.

The collection was originally donated 1953 by Cecil French, who gave Fulham Council (as it then was) six works by Burne-Jones (who lived in North End Lane) for display in local public libraries.  In 1954 he gave more paintings, creating a very significant collection of pre-Raphaelite art.

The Avenging Angel by Burne Jones

None of this art can be seen today - it is in storage, too valuable to display.  We don't have an art gallery in our Borough, and there are no plans to build one, so what is the purpose of keeping it?

Art isn't sacred. It should be displayed (as Cecil French clearly intended) or, if that isn't possible, it should be sold to someone who will display it.

There are plenty of public galleries in the UK who might buy the collection and, even if it were sold to a private buyer, at least someone would get to enjoy it.

In the meantime, at least £20m of public money (probably much more) would be realised. Then our Council could finally fix the playground at Hammersmith Park (amongst other long overdue repairs).

Or perhaps they could afford to hang some Christmas lights in our streets.  Or fix Hammersmith Bridge.  Or reduce our £42m debt mountain.

Whatever they do with the money, it would surely be better than storing (and insuring) an art collection that no-one gets to see.

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