Out of the 12 districts in the county, excluding Medway, Tonbridge & Malling offers residents the best deal on their annual council tax, followed by Ashford, according to research by money.co.uk.
The finance comparison site analysed a variety of council services across England, including fire service response time, recycling levels, road conditions, crime rate, percentage of good or outstanding schools and care homes, to reveal in which district council tax goes the furthest.
Council tax goes the furthest in Tonbridge & Malling, according to the research, with a final value score of 3.27/10.
Not only are 91 per cent of schools and 94 per cent of social care homes highly rated, waste management is the best in Kent (8.70/10). Fire services respond in 10 minutes on average – 3.47 minutes longer than Greater London.
Ashford comes in second place with a value score of 2.94/10. Although 88 per cent of care homes are rated as good or outstanding, road maintenance services are below par (4.45/10), and crime levels (827 cases per 10,000 people) are 24.9 per cent higher than in Tonbridge & Malling.
In third place is Tunbridge Wells with a value score of 2.80/10. Safety levels and waste management around the area are mediocre, with less than half of household waste (46.50 per cent) being properly recycled.
However, councils in Kent are generally underperforming compared to the rest of England.
Over the border in East Sussex, Wealden District Council offers the best value for money out of the five districts in the county with a score of 3.29.
But five out of the top ten English districts are in Greater London (Wandsworth, Westminster, Bromley, Merton, Kensington & Chelsea), with value scores averaging 5.02/10. On the other hand, Greater Manchester sees three of its districts in the top ten (Wigan, Bolton, Trafford), averaging scores of 4.56/10.
James Andrews, finance expert at money.co.uk said: “With council tax bills rising by around 3 per cent in April this year, it might come as good news for many that 46.1 per cent of tax challenges made last year succeeded in reducing their band. As property valuations were roughly done back in 1991, it’s possible that your house was misvalued.”
