County sets 3.9% Council Tax rise

This week the council approved a 3.9% Council Tax rise for its services for 2008-2009. This is in line with its promise to progressively reduce council tax increases and compares with the 4.3% rise in 2007-2008 and 4.7% in 2006-2007.

Deputy leader Cllr Tony Reid said: "We said we would bring rises in Council Tax down and we published our four year plan so that local people could see our intentions.

"Despite a history of poor financial settlements from the Government compared to some local authorities, we have stuck to our guns and delivered on our promise.

"Sound financial management has enabled us to be in this position but we will still need a further 6.4m worth of savings next year."

This week's council tax decision means that an average Band D council tax payer will have their bill for county council services increased by just over 11p per day in 2008-2009. The total bill for a Band D council tax payer for county services will be 1,089 compared to 1,047 in 2007-2008.

The county council has approved a budget that will see overall spending increased by 3.4% but this allows for an extra 14.5m on core services.

Part of this will see an extra 7.5m being spent on Adult Social Care, an extra 1.5m on various transport and environment initiatives and an extra 2.9m on services for children including 660,000 on child protection, and 400,000 on the Hastings schools collaboration.

Other initiatives include extra spending on maintenance of pavements in urban areas, work on the climate change agenda, and extending the opening hours at the archives and records office.

The county council has also approved its capital programme. The building programme will see the council spend in the region of 400m over the next five years. The investment is aimed at improving services for local communities and includes new school developments and children's centres, improvements to services for older people, the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road and new libraries.