Axe the Hike
Labour's plan to double your council tax
Families across Hammersmith & Fulham have been hit with worrying news this weekend. The Labour-run council has drawn up plans that could see its share of council tax rise by as much as 150% next year.
For a Band D household, that means paying £29.11 more every week. Once the GLA precept is added, the total bill would climb from around £1,519 to more than £3,000. In a single year, your council tax could double. Even the mildest option in the council's report, a 100% rise in its share, would cost the same household an extra £19.40 a week and still leave a £46 million gap in the budget.
That's why Liberal Democrats are launching Axe the Hike, our campaign to stop Labour doubling council tax on local families. This rise is wrong, it is unfair, and we will oppose it every step of the way.
A promise that didn't last a year
What makes this harder to swallow is that residents were told it wouldn't happen. In December 2025, council leader Stephen Cowan promised that the council would not burden residents with extraordinary new tax rises during a cost of living crisis.
Less than a year later, that crisis is still with us. Yet his administration is now drawing up plans for the biggest council tax rise this borough has ever seen. Residents were given a promise, and Labour should keep it.
A Labour problem, made by Labour
The cause is no mystery. Labour's own "fair funding" review will cut H&F's government grant from £150.5 million to £72.4 million over the next four years, and ours is the only Labour-led council caught up in these changes. So we now have Labour councillors blaming a Labour government for a Labour policy, while local families are left to pick up the bill.
Residents don't care which Labour office is at fault. They care that their bills are about to soar, and Labour has to own that.
The wrong tax at the worst time
Council tax is simply the wrong tool for the job. Liberal Democrats have long argued that it is an unfair tax, because it bears no relation to what people can actually afford. A pensioner on a fixed income, a young family stretched by rent and childcare, and a household on a modest wage can all be hit as hard as someone far better off.
Leaning on council tax to fill the hole in local government funding is a sticking plaster. Doubling an unfair tax in the middle of a cost of living squeeze would hit the people who can least afford it hardest, and we won't stand by while that happens.
Labour's priorities don't add up
Before asking residents to pay double, the council should be able to show that every pound it already spends is justified. At the moment, it can't.
Take the Civic Campus. In 2019, officers estimated the construction would cost £130 million, with a further £38.8 million for the Town Hall refurbishment and £6.8 million for fit-out, all funded by borrowing. Labour has since admitted the final bill came in higher than planned, but the details were reported to cabinet in a confidential report that residents can't see. The council should publish the final cost now, along with the evidence for the "substantial annual profit" it claims the scheme makes.
Then there's surveillance. The council is spending £3.2 million on upgraded CCTV, including retrospective facial recognition, on top of an earlier £5.4 million programme, with plans for live facial recognition and drones to follow. Big Brother Watch has described this as an unprecedented level of mass surveillance. The council says the money comes from developer contributions and from other boroughs that use its CCTV service, but the choice still speaks volumes. At a time when budgets are this tight, Labour is building a surveillance network that raises serious questions about privacy and civil liberties.
And the council expects to hold £65.8 million in earmarked reserves at the start of 2026/27. Much of that money is already committed, and reserves can only be spent once, but residents deserve a clear account of what is genuinely tied up and what could be used to protect them.
As part of Axe the Hike, we are submitting freedom of information requests on the Civic Campus, the Law Enforcement Team and facial recognition, and we will publish whatever we find.
What Hammersmith and Fulham Lib Dems are calling for
We are calling on the council to:
- Scrap plans for a 100% to 150% rise and keep its December 2025 promise to rule out extraordinary tax rises during the cost of living crisis
- Publish the full and final cost of the Civic Campus, and the evidence behind its claimed profits
- Rule out live facial recognition and drone surveillance
- Set out a clear account of which reserves are committed, and what could be used to protect residents
Sign the Axe the Hike petition
If you think doubling council tax is wrong, please add your name to our Axe the Hike petition calling on Labour to scrap the rise and keep its promise to residents.
Every signature shows the council that residents won't accept this quietly, so please share it with neighbours, friends and family across the borough. You can also get in touch with your local Councillors to share your objections.
Together, we can axe the hike.