PEOPLE in Burnley face higher bills after councillors voted to raise their portion of council tax by 1.9 per cent.

The borough’s increase, alongside a bigger rise from Lancashire County Council of 3.99 per cent and a hike of 1.99 per cent from the police and crime commissioner, means those living in a Band A property face a total bill for 2017/18 of £1,157.15.

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This equates to a rise of more than three per cent on the previous year.

At a full council meeting at Burnley Town Hall, the controlling Labour group voted through the increase in the face of opposition from Liberal Democrat, Conservative, UKIP and Independent councillors.

In his budget speech, executive resources cabinet member Cllr Wajid Khan blamed ‘wrong-headed decisions made in Whitehall’ for forcing the authority to make residents pay more.

He said: “This government continues to force more responsibilities on to us and expects our hard-up residents to pay for the privilege.

“More often than not, these responsibilities have been in areas that they’ve cut to the bone already.

“In light of the unfair and mean Tory government cuts, we have no choice but to raise Burnley’s share of the overall council tax bill by 1.9 per cent.

“That equates to less than 7p per week for Band A properties, the majority of households in our borough.

“There is a further cumulative 27.5 per cent funding gap for the 2018 to 21 three-year period, equating to £4million pounds of savings to find.

“Despite the bleak position we face, Burnley Council is committed to focus on maintaining high quality essential services to our residents; services that residents and the council see as their priorities.

“We will continue to provide value for money, and to squeeze the maximum value from every penny spent.

“The drive for efficiency and transformation is relentless.

“With enterprise, ambition and leadership we can deliver better outcomes for our residents.”

Opposition Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Gordon Birtwistle said he had identified ‘inefficiencies’ of administrative costs charged by the council to Burnley Market and Towneley Golf Course.

He believed these could pay to subsidise PCSOs and negate the need for a £30 charge per household for the collection of green waste which is to be introduced in May.

However, these proposals could not be debated by the council as they had not been lodged seven days prior to the meeting.

Council leader Cllr Mark Townsend accused him of ‘sleeping on the job’ for that oversight while Cllr Birtwistle countered that the council was ‘run like a politburo’.

For the Conservatives, Cllr David Heginbotham accused the controlling Labour group of ‘forever looking for free handouts’ and were ‘unable to run a business’.

He proposed a budget amendment of a zero per cent increase funded from reserves which was rejected.

Cllr Khan said the upcoming mayoral referendum had caused the council to have to dip into its reserve of funds.

He said: “This year was going to be the first year for a number of years that the council was going to set a budget without the need to use our reserves.

“However, the coming mayoral referendum has resulted in an extra £240,000 cost burden on the 2017/18 budget.

“Money we could have spent on further supporting initiatives and essential services for the people of Burnley and Padiham.”

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Authority has frozen its ‘precept’ and Lancashire police and crime commissioner Clive Grunshaw put his precept up by 1.99 per cent.

Pendle Council was last night trying to agree its council tax increase although the defection of a senior Labour councillor and a senior Liberal Democrat from the ruling coalition threatened to leave its budget meeting deadlocked.

The Labour and Lib Dem joint administration was proposing a 2.04 per cent increase on 2016/17, adding £5 per year to a Band D semi-detached home.

This increase, the maximum permitted by the government, would set its element of the council tax for a Band D residential property at £250.16 for the year 2017/18.

Households in Pendle also face significant increases in their parish and town council precepts to pay for services transferred to those bodies by the borough council.

Rossendale Council will set its council tax rate at its annual budget meeting on Wednesday, March 1, with the ruling Labour group proposing a 1.99 per cent rise.