MORE Bradford-district residents have been jailed for failing to pay their council tax than in any other local authority area in England and Wales, a study has revealed.

A total of 18 people were imprisoned during the past financial year in the district, according to a study that was part of a report by PayPlan and the IMA.

The report also claimed that Bradford Council “took court action seeking prison sentences against nearly 1,000 householders” for non-payment in the past year – also higher than any other area.

But a council spokesman said: “The figures describe the total number of actions taken and not the number of households against whom we have taken action, which is a much smaller number.

“In the past year there have been 151 new individual cases, the remaining 818 are returning cases which include people who may have had multiple court appearances or be cases from previous years.

"The vast majority of council tax payers in Bradford pay their council tax. And in an age when the Government is cutting all its grant to local authorities, every penny counts. So where people do not pay, then we have no choice but to pursue payment so that the council has enough funding to cover the cost of council services. Bradford Council has one of the lowest council tax band charges in the country.”

James Price, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said tax evasion was a legal matter but called on Bradford Council to reflect on possible reasons behind the high number of prosecutions.

He said: “Anyone who is accused of tax evasion should be dealt with through the legal system, but if one place is seeing so many cases, it may well be that council tax is just too high.”

George Williamson, from Bradford People’s Assembly, said: “The fact that Bradford Council is reducing help available for people to pay their council tax when a damning report shows that they take legal proceedings against more people that any other local authority is very hard to stomach.

"Bradford Council is bit by bit taking more help away from the most vulnerable whilst it spends money on non-essential projects.”