West Bridgford Council Tax: £2,612.61 at Band D

A band D house pays £2,612.61 in West Bridgford this year and £2,857.21 in Radcliffe on Trent, four miles up the A52. The gap is £244.60, and none of it is the borough council. It is the parish tier.

Rushcliffe froze its own share at £161.77 for 2026/27, the only one of the five charging bodies not to put its part up. Everything else rose.

Every band, every parish

Rushcliffe has 58 separate charging areas. Eleven of them have no parish precept at all and pay the borough’s floor of £2,545.21 at band D: Clipston, Elton-on-the-Hill, Flawborough, Kneeton, Owthorpe, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Saxondale, Scarrington, Screveton, Shelton and Tithby & Wiverton.

Source: Rushcliffe Borough Council council tax band charges 2026/27.

Two figures on the council’s published table are wrong, and both are corrected above.

• Stanton-on-the-Wolds, band A is printed as “1,727,88”, with a comma where the decimal point belongs. The charge is £1,727.88.
• Flawborough, band C is printed as £2,261.41. Flawborough has no parish precept, so its charge must match the ten other precept-free areas, which are all £2,262.41. The published figure is £1.00 low.

What makes up the bill

Four bodies charge everyone in the borough. A fifth, the parish or town council, charges most people and varies enormously.

The county council takes three-quarters of the bill. The borough takes about a sixteenth, which works out at £3.11 a week for a band D household, and it says more than 55% of Rushcliffe homes pay less than that because of the mix of bands.

The borough’s freeze costs it around £222,000 next year and roughly £1.2m over five years. Against the maximum increase it could have levied, it saves a band D household £4.58. The council calls it a one-year measure. (Rushcliffe Borough Council)

Why West Bridgford has a “special expenses” line and no parish council

West Bridgford has no parish or town council. The recreation grounds, play areas and community facilities that a parish council would run elsewhere are run by the borough instead, at a cost of £1,047,200 this year.

Rushcliffe recovers that through a special charge on West Bridgford properties alone. At band D it is £67.40. It is the borough’s largest special expense by a wide margin.

Two parishes also carry a small special charge on top of their own precept, because Rushcliffe still spends a little in each: £3.35 at band D in Keyworth and £3.40 in Ruddington, covering £10,600 and £11,500 of spending respectively. (Council Tax Charges leaflet 2026)

The parish tier is the only part that moved sharply

Across the borough the parish share of an average band D bill rose from £81.89 to £98.06, an increase of 19.75%. Set against the county’s 3.99%, the police’s 5.07% and the fire authority’s 5.14%, that is by far the steepest rise on the bill.

Almost all of it comes from one village.

Radcliffe on Trent’s parish precept went from £331,800 to £1,022,803, and its band D parish charge went from £111.88 to £312.00. That is a rise of £200.12 in a single year, and it takes the village from mid-table to the most expensive place in the borough by £145.08 at band D.

Radcliffe on Trent is the only area in Rushcliffe where the total bill rose by more than 5% this year. It went up 11.54%. Every other parish moved between 1.70%, at Hawksworth, and 4.43%, at Stanford-on-Soar. No bill fell.

There is no cap on a parish precept. The referendum limits that bind county, police, fire and borough do not apply to a parish or town council.

West Bridgford sits 26th of the 58 areas, almost exactly mid-table.

One more discrepancy in the council’s own papers. The Council Tax Charges leaflet gives Radcliffe on Trent’s 2026/27 parish rate as £312.88. The band charges table gives a total that works out at £312.00, and the leaflet’s own stated increase of £200.12 added to last year’s £111.88 also comes to £312.00. The 88p in the leaflet appears to be carried over from the 2025/26 figure.

Check your band, and challenge it

Bands are set by the Valuation Office Agency, not by Rushcliffe, and they are based on what a property was worth on 1 April 1991. Current market value is irrelevant to the band.

• Band A: up to £40,000
• Band B: over £40,000 up to £52,000
• Band C: over £52,000 up to £68,000
• Band D: over £68,000 up to £88,000
• Band E: over £88,000 up to £120,000
• Band F: over £120,000 up to £160,000
• Band G: over £160,000 up to £320,000
• Band H: over £320,000

Look yours up with the VOA council tax band finder, and challenge it at Challenge your council tax band.

A formal appeal is only allowed in narrow circumstances:

• a material increase or reduction in value from a physical change to the building
• you start or stop using part of the building for business, or the balance between domestic and commercial use changes
• you have become the taxpayer for the property within the last six months

“House prices have gone up” is not a ground, and the council says so directly. Keep paying the current bill until any challenge succeeds; the revised bill is issued afterwards.

Discounts and reductions

People disregarded when counting adults in a household include full-time students, student nurses, apprentices earning no more than £195 a week, 18 and 19 year olds who have just left school, people who are severely mentally impaired, live-in carers on low pay, people in care homes, and people in prison other than for non-payment.

Check entitlement with the council’s benefit calculator or apply through the discount and exemption form.

Tell the council within 21 days if anything changes that affects a discount. The penalty for not doing so is £70 the first time and £280 for each subsequent failure.

Empty homes and second homes cost more, not less

Rushcliffe uses its discretionary powers at the top of the range.

• Unfurnished and empty, first 4 weeks: 50% discount. It applies once per empty period, and the property must then be lived in for six weeks before another can be given.
• Empty over 12 months: 100% premium, so 200% of the normal charge.
• Empty over 5 years: 200% premium, so 300%.
• Empty over 10 years: 300% premium, so 400%.
• Second home for over 12 months: 100% premium, so 200%. This started on 1 April 2025.

A property being uninhabitable does not stop the bill. The council’s definition is strict: rebuilding walls, roofs, foundations or floors counts, while rewiring, replastering, damp treatment, new bathrooms and kitchens, drainage and redecoration do not. Only the VOA can delete a band, and only for demolition, genuine dereliction or major renovation.

Exceptions to the premiums include a property actively marketed for sale or let, for up to 12 months; an annexe; up to 12 months after probate is granted; and a job-related dwelling. (Unoccupied properties and second homes)

This bill has an end date

Rushcliffe Borough Council will not exist to send a 2028/29 bill.

On 20 July 2026 the government confirmed that nine Nottingham and Nottinghamshire councils were to be replaced by two unitary authorities from April 2028, a plan the Government paused on 7 September 2026. Under it Rushcliffe was split between them: 17 wards, West Bridgford among them, join a new authority covering Nottingham city and parts of Broxtowe and Gedling, and the remaining seven wards join a new Nottinghamshire authority. Elections to both are planned for May 2027. (Rushcliffe Borough Council)

Until 31 March 2028 the borough and county councils carry on as now.

Also useful

• West Bridgford bin days: what the borough’s share of the bill actually buys, and when it turns up.
• Parking in West Bridgford: every tariff for both councils.
• Rushcliffe house prices: what homes are selling for now, as opposed to in 1991.

Sources

• Rushcliffe Borough Council: council tax band charges 2026/27 and 2025/26; Council Tax Charges leaflet 2026, which carries the precept table, the parish precepts and the special expenses; where your council tax goes; how much will I pay; discounts and exemptions and other reductions.
• Valuation Office Agency for bands and appeals.

Checked 24 August 2026. Year-on-year changes are calculated from the council’s own 2025/26 and 2026/27 band tables.