Council tax payers can also sign up to receive their council tax bills by email. The fast, free, environmentally-friendly and secure service is available online at www.york.gov.uk in the Do it Online area. The service gives them instant and 24/7 access to their bill and they will be sent an email notification when their new bill is ready.

The Council has for the first time in 4 years accepted a government subsidy which means that Council Tax bills have been frozen

To sign up for e-billing, all residents have to do is have their last council tax bill to hand and go to the council’s website:

• Scroll to Do it Online
• Select Apply for it
• Scroll to Council Tax
• Select Council Tax e-billing – then follow the instructions from there.

As soon as their bill is available they will be sent an email notification and will be able to view their account securely online at any time and download and print the bill if needed. Each person named on the bill can arrange to receive their own e-copy.

City of York Council has a net revenue budget of £119.6million, funded by Council tax income of £72.8million, government grant of £21.0million, Retained Business Rates of £24.1million. A one off income of £1.8million has also been identified from a surplus Collection fund of Council Tax and council reserves.

The budget – voted through by Labour with Green party support – includes highly controversial proposals such as the introduction a £35 pa charge for emptying (all) green bins, a reduction in grey bin emptying frequency to once every 3 or 4 weeks and an end to support for local Community Centres.

The price that Green Councillors  secured in return for their votes was a 10p per hour increase in car parking charges.

York has the 14th lowest band D council tax, the 3rd lowest spend per head of population of any unitary council in England and the 8th lowest government funding per head in the country.