Suburbs set to repel border raiders

Thousands of homeowners in areas such as Bearsden, Milngavie and Newton Mearns feared huge council tax hikes if they were swallowed up by the redrawn borders of Glasgow City Council.

Scottish Labour figures have been pushing for a transfusion of middle class wealth into Glasgow, which is home to half of Scotland’s poorest people and suffers from unemployment well above the national average.

Council tax in the city ranges from 761 to 2,282, compared with 607 to 1,820 in neighbouring East Renfrewshire.

Reformers hoped this disparity would be addressed by the Scottish Executive’s long-awaited cities review by expanding the city boundaries to include the leafy and cash-rich suburbs.

But Scotland on Sunday understands the review, which is due to report next month after an 18-month delay, will reject the idea.

Ministers are wary of a bitter pre-election backlash in communities who currently benefit from low council taxes and high quality services in East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire.

"They have realised it’s just not worth the effort. There is too much political opposition locally to the idea and not enough demand. It would create such a stink," said one source close to the cities review team.

That will disappoint council tax payers in Glasgow but come as a major relief to homeowners in suburban areas outwith the city council boundary, which also include Giffnock, Milton of Campsie, Bishopbriggs and Kirkintilloch.

It has also disappointed Labour MSPs, such as Paul Martin, who pushed for the change. Martin believes well-heeled communities that use city services, including galleries and libraries, should help to pay for them.

But Keith Moody, the leader of East Dunbartonshire Council, said that to change the boundaries to give Glasgow more land would be "solving Glasgow’s problems by the wrong means by punishing others".

He argued that while East Dunbartonshire has one of the lowest council tax rates in the country, it receives the lowest government subsidy per head for a mainland council - at 1,221 per head next year compared with 1,799 for Glasgow. His view is that boundaries should be "sacrosanct".

Allan Steele, the provost of East Renfrewshire Council, also welcomed news that boundaries will almost certainly now not change. "We are already paying our way and I don’t think a change through having more council tax payers would help Glasgow," he said.

But Martin, MSP for Springburn, said boundary changes would make sense to reflect the city’s changing demographics.

He said: "People who become economically active are moving just outside the boundary... Glasgow cannot continue to find itself in this position."

Martin said that if ministers were prepared to bite the bullet, they should consider a system of charges for those who use the city’s services but do not pay for them through council tax. He said: "We have state of the art sports facilities, museums, galleries and library services and I have always felt that those outwith the boundary should be charged for using these. The burden should be more evenly spread."

But Charles Gordon, Glasgow City Council’s Labour leader, now regards redrawing the boundaries as a "dead issue" and instead wants the cities review to award the city more central government funding to reflect its metropolitan status.

More cash appears to be on the horizon and ministers are expected to let the city hold on to a percentage of business rates generated from new economic developments in the city that are currently pooled centrally by the Executive.

The cities review, launched in 2000, was intended to devise a blueprint to tackle some of the most deep-rooted problems facing Glasgow as well as Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness.