FARNHAM households face another hefty near-£100 hike to their council tax bills this April if proposals to go for the maximum allowed increases by Surrey and Waverley borough councils and Surrey Police Crime Commissioner are approved.

The final decisions will be taken this month on a 5.99 per cent rise by Surrey County Council, a 2.99 per cent increase by Waverley Borough Council, and a 5.3 per cent rise for the policing element of council tax.

Last Thursday, Farnham Town Council also agreed a lesser 2.6 per cent increase in its precept, citing a £32,000 shortfall in its budget for 2018/19 and the need to pick up services no longer provided by its senior authorities.

All things considered, it means the average Band D home in Farnham could see its annual tax bill rise by £98.59 (5.5 per cent) on April 1, from £1,789.06 to £1,887.65.

Of this annual sum, Surrey County Council will demand the lion’s share (£1,411.31), followed by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey (£236.47), Waverley Borough Council (£177.05) and finally Farnham Town Council (£62.62).

The 5.5 per cent rise compares to a 4.3 per cent (£73.87) hike to Farnham’s Band D tax bills last April, and is more than double the current 2.6 per cent Consumer Price Index inflation rate, increasing the squeeze on household incomes.

Of Surrey’s proposed 5.99 per cent hike, to be voted on at full council in Kingston next Tuesday (February 6), three per cent is ring-fenced for adult social care services, providing an additional £20 million to meet growing demand.

Justifying the rise at the meeting, cabinet members cited the “recent sharp decline” in central government funding, including a cut of more than £200 million to the county council’s core funding since 2010.

Addressing cabinet members at County Hall, Surrey leader David Hodge said he “deeply regrets” the proposed rise, which equates to an additional £1.53 per week for the average Band D household.

In addition to the tax hike, Surrey’s proposed budget for 2018/19 outlines more than £25 million savings to be made by cutting services supporting the county’s children, schools and families, while £18.7 million could also be slashed from adult social care.

Hitting back, leader of the county council’s Lib Dem group Heather Watson said: “This budget contains drastic cuts to services such as libraries, road maintenance, services for children and families as well as cuts to support for people with learning disabilities.

“They come on top of the unpopular cuts which have already been made to services including highways, community recycling centres and support to vulnerable people.

“It is a failure by central government to provide adequate funding to the county council and a failure of the Conservative-administration to get to grips with the financial problems at County Hall.”

Justifying its own maximum-allowed 2.99 per cent tax hike, fellow Conservative-run authority Waverley Borough Council said it faced a £3.2 million shortfall going forwards, while Surrey Police plans to make £5.3 million of savings.

Proposing the rise, set to be considered by Waverley’s decision-making executive on February 6, officers stated: “It is recommended that, given the significant projected budget shortfall in 2018/19 and subsequent years, Waverley’s council tax is increased by the maximum allowed in 2018/19. This would generate an additional £280,000 income.”

Discussing its own precept at last Thursday’s meeting of Farnham Town Council, council leader Carole Cockburn said it is a time “to consolidate rather than innovate” but added the council felt compelled to pick up some of the tasks no longer fulfilled by higher authorities, and so recommended a modest 2.6 per cent rise.

Mrs Cockburn said: “As a local authority, our precept is relatively very low. But we are aware that taxpayers are going to have to pay other quantities of council tax, so we start by trying not to put the tax up at all.

“But we do have a shortfall of £32,000, and the question is how best to make that up. We can certainly make some savings, use our reserves, there are all sorts of different ways. But at the same time, you have to be aware of what we want to do as a council, and what we don’t want to do is go back on what we’ve achieved so far.

“We don’t want to take on anything new - we feel we’re at the stage now where we’d like to consolidate rather than innovate this year.

“But our costs are going up, and we are wanting to keep enough capability to take over some of the work the senior authorities are not going to do - especially if it’s something that spoils our lovely town.

“We’re not asking the public to meet all of our shortfall, but we thought if we increase our precept by 2.6 per cent, which equates to £1.20 a week for a Band D household, we feel that we can carry on doing what we do.”

Town councillors also signed off £77,650 in grants to community organisations in 2018/19, including £52,000-worth of “service level agreements” paid over a maximum of three years to organisations including Farnham Maltings (£13,000), Citizens Advice (£17,500), 40 Degreez (£2,000), Hoppa (£10,000) and the Brightwells Gostrey Centre (£10,000).

It was also agreed to dish out a total of £17,650 “in year community grants” and £8,000 “grants from other budgets” in 2018/19, to be paid to 27 groups across the town