NORTH Yorkshire County Council residents have faced an average council tax increase of £412 since 2007 - despite cuts to services.

The figures emerged as the local authority’s executive approved a 4.99 per cent rise to council tax for the coming year.

The increase – resulting in a Band D council tax level of £1,311 for the council in 2019/20 – would be equivalent to paying about £60 more to the authority over the year for an average household.

Council leaders said the organisation had been forced to address further financial challenges ahead, while protecting frontline services, as it entered an ninth year of austerity.

County councillor Gareth Dadd, the council’s deputy leader and executive member for finance, said despite the proposed council tax increase and planned savings, the council would be facing a black hole of £14 million by 2022 due to spiralling demand for social care and those with special educational needs.

He said while the £14 million sounded like a “frightening” prospect, he pledged the council would not panic by immediately cutting more services. Cllr Dadd said: “As well as setting the council tax for this year we are taking action to identify solutions three years hence. We do that for one very good reason - the demand from vulnerable people within North Yorkshire, and we must satisfy that demand."

“This year’s budget is really a secondary consideration. We have always taken as an authority a longer term view. I would strongly caution every member against not doing so again.

“Those authorities which did not are now reaping some disastrous consequences, Northamptonshire being a classic example. By being on the cusp of what is in effect bankruptcy it’s the most vulnerable residents of North Yorkshire that would have suffered. Our raison d’etre through this period of austerity has been to protect our most vulnerable members of society.”