London council tax: Bills to rise by almost £100 as cheapest and most expensive boroughs revealed

London household face an average increase in council tax bills of almost £100 from April, according to research by The Standard. Total bills will range from almost £2,500 for a benchmark band D bill in Kingston, which will remain the capital’s most expensive borough for council tax, to just over £1,000 in Westminster. However, Wandsworth may end up retaining the honour of issuing the cheapest council tax bills in London when it publishes its draft budget next week.

Newham, which has been hit by a financial crisis in part due to the cost of providing temporary accommodation for a soaring number of homeless families, has proposed the biggest increase – a hike of £131.62. This includes the £18.92 increase in the mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan’s “precept” that is levied on all borough bills. It means the amount added to bills by the Greater London Authority, to help pay for services including the Metropolitan police, the London fire brigade and Transport for London, will rise to £490.38, four per cent more than the current year.

Most London councils are seeking a 4.99 per cent increase in their share of bills – though Kensington and Chelsea is limiting its demand to four per cent. Nine of the 22 boroughs to publish plans to date want increases in excess of £100 a year, The Standard has established. A total of 15 London boroughs already charge in excess of £2,000 a year for band D bills: Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Brent, Camden, Croydon, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Kingston, Lewisham, Redbridge, Richmond, Sutton and Waltham Forest.

These will be joined from April by Bromley, Ealing, Greenwich, Hounslow, Merton and Islington. At the other end of the scale, Westminster, under Labour control since 2022, will break the four-figure barrier for the first time but will remain one of the cheapest local authorities in the country with a total band D demand of £1,017. The Standard has gathered information from budget plans published during January and February by the 33 boroughs.

Two-thirds have published draft plans. The others, including Wandsworth, Camden, Hackney, Hillingdon, Lambeth and Southwark, are due to reveal their proposals by the end of February. Taken together, many London households will pay in excess of £2,000 a year - or £200 a month, as bills are typically paid over 10 successive months. Newham mayor Rokhsana Fiaz had sought a 9.99 per cent increase, but has been forced to curb her borough’s rise to 8.99 per cent after Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner intervened.

Newham – one of seven London boroughs to apply for emergency government funding – has more than 40,000 people on its council house waiting list and more than 7,000 households in temporary accommodation. Newham has a £394m annual budget but is facing an £84m funding gap next year, of which £52m is due to homelessness and temporary accommodation costs. Croydon, another council in dire financial straits, will remain the second most expensive in London if it ratifies plans to add a total of £113 to its band D bills, taking them to £2,480.