Will Guildford Borough Council freeze the council tax or not?

With over a month to go until the final budget decisions are made across the country, Guildford Borough Council has yet to signal an intention to freeze the council tax for 2012/13, in contrast to 152 councils have have signed up to the Government's council tax freeze offer.

This is following news that Surrey County Council are this week considering a proposal to reject the Government's council tax freeze offer in order to save it from an "enormous financial black hole" according to the leader of the council.

In a video uploaded to YouTube uploaded last week, SCC leader David Hodge said: "For some councils it is a good offer but it's not right for Surrey. We'd be trading short-term gain for long-term pain.

"If we froze council tax and took Whitehall's offer of a one-off grant, we'd be creating a hole in our budget of seventy million pounds in just five years.

"That's equivalent to wiping out Surrey's road maintenance budget for more than two years."

Last year, GBC accepted the Government's offer of a council tax freeze for 2011/12 with the majority of county council staff having their pay frozen.

What do you think? Should the council tax be frozen for 2012/13? Are we paying too much in council tax? Let us know your thoughts.