COUNTY council bosses have “no other choice” but to go ahead with the planned maximum increase in council tax next year because it is being let down by government cuts, opposition councillors have said in reaction to draft budget proposals.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, Conservative leader of Worcestershire County Council, announced it plans to increase its share of council tax by 3.99 per cent next year with two per cent ring-fenced for adult social care.

If approved, it would be the seventh year in a row it has increased – having gone up by almost four per cent last year and 4.94 per cent the year before.

Opposition councillors have said raising council tax is the only way it can pay for caring for the county’s most vulnerable due to government cuts.

Labour councillor Paul Denham, who represents Rainbow Hill in Worcester, said the council had no other choice but to raise council tax because it needed to pay for the rising cost of social care.

Cllr Denham said: “We do need to find considerably more money for social care, particularly adult social care, however it is because of the government’s lack of funding for this area of council activity

“It would be far better to raise the amount from people who are the wealthiest in society rather than everybody.

“The council has no choice because the council has no money coming from anywhere else.”

Cllr Denham said it was “really unfair” to place the burden on all council taxpayers in Worcestershire to pay for the funding gap caused by the rising cost of social care and said it should be down to income tax from central government to pay for funding.

Green councillor Matthew Jenkins, who represents St Stephen, said the council needed to increase its share of council tax because the authority relied so much on central government funding which had been “cut and cut” for several years.

“Eventually it will get to the point where we have no funding from the government,” he said.

“It has to go up because we need to get the full amount, we need to get as much as we can.

“The Conservatives have pretty much ignored adult social care funding in its latest manifesto. They are just ignoring it and hoping it goes away.

“It is something that we [Green and Lib Dem councillors] have been pushing for many years.

“We need to raise council tax to pay for the care. Council leaders have previously not been going for the full amount and they really needed to. Council tax is the only thing we have.”