That's not really true.
The VAO would take into account a range of features and amenities including developments such as patios and paved driveways to inform council tax banding decisions and this applied all over the UK. The Tories instructed the VAO to end this work as part of their agenda to keep council tax artificially low. 15 years later councils are practically insolvent, the public services for which they are responsible are in dire straits and they have been stripped of capacity to anything that may support economic development or improve public services.
The idea that patios and built in wardrobes would have been subject to a tax.
In contrast, the economy grew in every year that Brown was Chancellor, public satisfaction with the NHS was at record levels, roads weren't full of potholes, new schools had been built, the armed forces retained war fighting capacity. And no councils were going bust. A terrible chancellor wouldn't have delivered any of these things.