Herts County Council and the Police and Crime Commissioner both want a rise in council tax due to the increasing demand on their services.

The county council 2018/19 budget includes a 5.99 per cent tax increase: three per cent for adult social care, and 2.99 per cent for all of their services.

Council leader David Williams said: “Our recent budget consultation showed the majority of residents would rather see council tax increases than service reductions. While we would prefer not to place this extra burden on taxpayers, we have a responsibility to do the best for all of our residents, particularly those most in need of our support.

“We will also be investing in key areas to address the challenges of a growing county. Alongside the planned investment into the maintenance of our busiest roads, we are investing an additional £29m over the next four years to improve the condition of our unclassified road network - that’s the roads that most of us live on, as well as rural lanes.

“We are already working together with local partners to provide the infrastructure to support the delivery of over 90,000 homes over the next 15 years – with us directly helping to deliver 6,000 of these new homes.

“Finally, we will keep looking for different and innovative ways to deliver services in the most efficient way possible. For example, our new Family Centres will offer families all the support they previously received from children’s centres, but we are also integrating the services of our Health Visitors and School Nurse teams to provide a more joined-up family service while reducing overall costs.”

The proposed budget will be voted on by county councillors on Tuesday, February 20.

Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd is increasing council tax by £1-a-month for the average household, to protect neighbourhood officers and provide more officers to fight burglary, anti-social behaviour, and drug crime.

He said: “I have been able to keep council tax low and as a Hertfordshire resident you pay one of the lowest council tax contributions for policing in the country. In what has been an extremely busy year for the police, we still have a comparatively low level of crime.”