The parts of Lancashire where average council tax has risen most and least since it was introduced in 1993
The charge has been in place for more than three decades.
New research has revealed the areas of Lancashire where average council tax per dwelling has increased most and least over the 33 years since it was introduced.
According to analysis of data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government - carried out by insurance experts Alan Boswell Group - Fylde has experienced the largest estimated real-terms percentage rise in average council tax per property since 1993, where it has risen by 80.2 percent after inflation; that is equivalent to approximately £898 per dwelling.
The underlying council tax figures show the average Fylde bill rising from £508 per household in 1993/94 to £2,016 in 2026/27, an unadjusted increase of £1,508 or 297 percent. After accounting for inflation, £508 in 1993/94 is equivalent to approximately £1,118 in estimated prices today.
The borough was followed on the list by Chorley, which recorded a rise of 75.2 percent real-terms rise, and South Ribble with a 74.8 percent hike by the same measure. Ribble Valley and Preston were fourth and fifth, with increases of 74.4 and 72.5 percent respectively.
Blackpool registered the smallest increase in Lancashire at 48.1 percent over the period - while all 14 Lancashire council areas saw smaller percentage rises than the England-wide average of 86 percent (see full list below).
All but two of those councils are district authorities, meaning that the lion’s share of their bills is made up of the charge levied by Lancashire County Council rather than the local authority that actually collects the cash. The only parts of the county where that is not the case are Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, which have been standalone councils since 1998.
In the remainder - so-called two-tier areas - the county council takes responsibility for services like highways, social care and schools, while the districts look after the likes of bin collections, parks, housing and most planning applications.
Council tax was brought in under the then John Major government in 1993 as a replacement for the hugely controversial poll tax that had been created while his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, was in office. That particular incarnation of the local tax system - officially known as the community charge - had proved so unpopular that it sparked riots in some parts of the country after it began to be levied in 1990.
Unlike the poll tax, which was a per-head charge, council tax was determined by property values, with dwellings being split into eight bands. Those bands were based on valuations from 1991, which have never been updated since despite massive changes in the housing market in in the intervening three-and-a-half decades.