Council tax is set to rise in Kings Langley, in order to provide pension arrangements for the council’s staff.

At a meeting of the village’s parish council on Tuesday night, councillors revealed that residents with properties in Band D will now be paying £37.92 per year, instead of £32.69, while in Band G it’ll be £63.20 instead of £54.48. This is a rise of 15.99 per cent and 13.8 per cent respectively.

The precept has also increased to £89,120, a 14.3 per cent increase from last year’s £76,345.

Councillor Alan Anderson, Conservative representative, said: “For some time now, the parish council has not been providing pension arrangements for its staff, and with the government continually changing its mind on whether to force small organisations to offer pension arrangements, the council decided unanimously that the time had come to join the relevant pension scheme.

“Unfortunately, for most people in the village, this means we've had to put the precept up by an amount that equates to 17p per week.

“The council was acutely aware that the decision appears to run at odds with the current controversy surrounding public sector pensions and who pays for them.

“However, most members of the council were elected under a manifesto that clearly said we would have to deal with this issue and in limiting the impact as much as possible, we believe we are meeting our commitment.

“Contrary to what is going on in the rest of the public sector, where union leaders have caused strike action over 1.5 to 3 per cent of pay, our staff have also agreed, as part of this decision, to take cuts of nearly 10 per cent in their take home pay and we reckon that bears considerable testimony to their dedication to Kings Langley."