Ratepayers' Association

Ratepayers' Association in the United Kingdom and other countries is a name used by a political party or electoral alliance contesting a local election to represent the interests of those who pay rates to the municipal government. In Canada a ratepayers' association is the same thing as a neighbourhood association.^[1]

Rates are a property tax which provides a main source of funding for some local governments; the amount paid is usually proportional to the value of the property, and commercial premises may have higher rates than residences. Therefore a Ratepayers' Association is typically supported by property owners rather than tenants, and by business owners in particular, and has a platform of value-for-money and avoiding wasteful municipal spending. In the United Kingdom, local elections were on a ratepayer franchise until the 1910s, and Ratepayers' Associations remained prominent until the 1930s, when they lost ground to the three national parties; since the 1960s they have retained a role in scattered urban and suburban areas.

Examples include:

• Heald Green Ratepayers has represented the ward of Heald Green on Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council in England since 1927 (formerly on Gatley UDC prior to the creation of Stockport MBC)
• Citizens and Ratepayers (renamed "Communities and Residents" in 2012) controlled Auckland City Council for most of the years from 1938 to 1998
• Newtownabbey Ratepayers' Association had members on Newtownabbey Borough Council in Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2005
• Wolverhampton Association of Ratepayers had one or two seats on Wolverhampton City Council between 1975 and 1980
• Chingford Ratepayers' Association, which governed Municipal Borough of Chingford until 1965, was nominally independent of the Conservative Party; similarly in many other London boroughs in the early and mid 20th century
• Sligo Ratepayers Association won 8 of 24 seats in the 1919 Sligo Corporation election on an anti-corruption, pro-business ticket.