YOUR SWINDON YOUR VERDICT: SWINDON residents have given a damning judgment of council services.

Four out of five Swindonians think they do not get good value for money from their council tax payments.

The result from the Your Swindon Your Verdict survey comes as the council is due to approve a three per cent council tax rise made possible by a series of cuts.

Council leader Coun Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town & Lawns) said the number of people saying they did not get good value for money was bound to be high.

"Nobody likes paying taxes," he said.

"If you had asked people the same about the taxes they pay to central government and the services they get the answer would have been the same."

But he said the council was trying to improve the value for money that residents get.

"One of the major challenges facing the Conservative administration is to try to ensure that our customers get the best possible service," he said.

"It is vital that all the residents of Swindon are given the maximum opportunity to communicate with the borough their views on the level of service provided by the council.

"That is one of the reasons I have been delighted to hold public meetings to encourage all the tax payers of the borough to make their views known face to face."

Coun Bawden added that the council's new corporate objectives were to improve the corporate performance of the council, to provide an affordable council tax and to improve the services that the council provides to the people of Swindon.

Coun Barrie Thompson (Parks), deputy Labour leader, also agreed with the top two priorities but said that people had to be willing to pay.

"Both of the two services identified do take a lot of resources and you can't do that if you are only willing to pay a very small council tax," he said.

The council is due to set a council tax rise of just three per cent after making cuts of £10m. Coun Bawden has said that by finding savings the council is becoming more efficient.

Just under 80 per cent of people said they did not get good value for money from their council tax while 18 per cent said they did. Two per cent did not answer.