You're taxing people on their ability to pay, not based on where they live. The fact that rich people live in rich areas is coincidental. A low paid person living in an area that traditionally needed a higher council tax doesn't get over taxed and a high salaried person living in an area that traditionally needed a smaller council tax isn't under taxed. Where someone lives shouldn't determine their taxation. Their ability to pay should.
It’s not ‘coincidental’ to the use to which the tax is being put, which you seem to be overlooking. I see the logic of what you are saying from the payer’s perspective but ultimately taxes are raised to fund services. How do the poorer areas raise enough money to pay for the more extensive public services that will obviously be needed in such areas? If there aren’t enough rich people living in, say, Sunderland to fund its services, then that money will have to come from somewhere else or its citizens will go without. Whereas Westminster will be overflowing with money it doesn’t need.
You couldn't do this by area, but you cardinally could do this by product value. A simple new VAT rate on products costing more than £10k of 25%, excluding things like new windows, things that make your home more efficient, electric cars etc, could easily be introduced. Anyone who can afford a £20k Rolex, jewelry, painting etc can afford another £1k in tax. Same as there should be a minus 5% rate of VAT for such things as feminine sanitary products, school stationary, Children’s shoes, medical supplies.
But (as I think you acknowledge?) that doesn’t seem to address the point that the “richest” taxpayers tend to live in areas where the expenditure on public services is lowest and therefore their taxes are least needed. That’s still (largely) the case whether you use land value or some other measure of “wealth”, surely. Council tax differs from other taxes as it is hypothecated to fund local services. You need a system which is fair, but also allows those services to be properly funded. Unless you just revert to centralised funding of local government, but then you face the political problem of limiting local autonomy on which I commented above.
You'll never get around that, not in the form of council or local taxes. Ultimately you want those that can afford more to pay more and it be distributed to the areas that need it most. Leveling up i think Boris called it leveling up. It would be easy for central government to identify revenue bought in on the 25% tax band and distribute that to the areas that need it most, the areas with the lowest tax payers.
But the present system does nod to it in so far as the higher band council taxpayers in more deprived areas pay more than those in the least deprived. My initial response was to the claim that this is 'unfair'. Yes, it seems unfair from a payer's perspective, but it is less so when you consider the uses to which the funds are being put. The trouble with central goverment distribution is that it is subject to political whims. It could be used to 'punish' a council with which central goverment had a disagreement. I suppose some protection could be provided if it was placed on a statutory footing and ringfenced in some way.
We usually go for a day out to Littlehampton once or twice a year; it's a mix of sand and shingle, free to park when away from the road across the front and never too crowded. Most times we'd eat in the Harvester there at the end of our day, you had to book days in advance though. I understand they're rebuilding it anyway.
I'm not sure if they are going to rebuild it. There is no sign of construction yet. The cinema and community centre that is next door has now been fully repaired and reopened though.