'They don't listen to us,' community reacts to rate rise approval

Council's six-week community consultation on the SRV last year included an online survey which found 97 per cent of respondents were opposed to the planned increase.

The Leader spoke with ratepayers, renters, pensioners, business owners, and the local government itself to get a broad range of reactions to the state regulator's decision.

Local ratepayer Judith Edmonds said many ratepayers won't be able to afford the "astronomical" increase on top of current cost of living pressures.

"Most of us are struggling to cope with what we're living with, this is just really hitting us. A lot of people are going to lose their houses over a period of time because of this," Ms Edmonds said.

While renters don't feel the impact of rate rises directly, there is concern landlords might point to the increase as a reason to up the rent.

"I'm on maternity leave at the moment and my pay is soon to run out so that could be a little bit concerning, but my partner is doing casual work on top of his full-time job so this might mean him taking on more hours if needed," renter Jessica Lestrange said.

"There's still lots of roads and potholes that need fixing. We don't have family in Tamworth so we do a fair bit of driving, and I've noticed some roads where we live in East Tamworth getting new road put on when we probably don't need it."

Pensioner Tony Stenard says it will be difficult for him to pay for the rates increase for two reasons. First, he lives on a fixed income, and second, because his other rates and charges have already shot up.

"My water bill has gone from $200 to just over $800 in three months," Mr Stenard said.

"The [base rates] have never gone down. They've always snuck up a bit at a time."

Mr Stenard says he has a meeting arranged with council staff to find out why his water bill has jumped so much. He has found no leaks in his house.

Council recently updated its pensioner and hardship policies for people on low or fixed incomes struggling to pay their rates.

Co-owner of Sonny's Bakery Anthony Daniels told the Leader he's incredibly frustrated with what he sees as a lack of engagement and transparency by the local council.

"It's obvious they don't listen to us. they don't listen to business owners or the general public. We all objected so I don't understand why they're moving forward," Mr Daniels said.

If the rate rise goes through, the average business in Tamworth would be forced to pay an extra $768.49 in the 2024-25 financial year, and $738.38 the following year.

"It's hard enough that wages went up, then we have cost of goods going up, interest rates go up, and then council feels the need to increase rates by an exponential amount," Mr Daniels said.

Tamworth mayor Russell Webb says councillors have heard the community's frustration, but the majority believe the rate rise is needed for council to continue providing services.

"The community as a whole probably don't want a rate rise. If you go to anybody and ask if they're happy to pay more for any service; electricity, water, fuel, rates, whatever it might be, they're going to say they don't want to pay more," Cr Webb said.

"But what IPART has done is they've looked at that, they've looked at the community submissions, and they've actually identified if we don't go for a rate rise ... our community infrastructure, our road networks, everything around us that gives us the liveability we've got will start to fall down and start to drop away."

Cr Webb says two-thirds of the SRV revenue will go straight into improving the region's roads and blamed the federal and state governments for not providing enough funds to local councils in the first place.

He reiterated a call made by many local governments for the Australian Government to commit to providing 1 per cent of federal tax revenue to Financial Assistance Grants for local councils, up from the 0.55 per cent currently given.

"If they gave us that, we wouldn't have to do what we're doing now, and every other council in NSW is in the same boat," Cr Webb said.