RESIDENTS in the Basingstoke borough are facing a massive increase in their council tax next year that will take the bill for the average house to more than £1,000 a year.

After the Government announced that Hampshire would be receiving the smallest grant increase of any county authority in the country, county council leader Ken Thornber warned that just to maintain current levels of service, taxpayers would be facing an increase of around 15 per cent next April on the county portion of the tax.

This increase would mean that the average house in Basingstoke - Band D - would have to pay an extra £110 next year, taking it to £1,005 from the county rise alone.

But at the same time, Basingstoke council leader Brian Gurden warned that the Basingstoke council element of the tax - which had been held at nil increase for the past four years - would have to go up as well.

"It doesn't look as though we will be able to freeze the council tax this year," he told The Gazette.

"We are thinking in terms of a broadly inflation-based increase of around two-and-a-half per cent.

"I know I am speaking for my colleagues in the joint administration when I say we promise not to make the increase in our share of the council tax a penny more than we need."

A two-and-a-half per cent increase in the Basingstoke part of the tax - currently £85 for Band D - would work out at an extra £2 a year.

The prospect of a double increase in council tax came on the day the Government confirmed it intended to switch grants away from the prosperous South to the poorer northern councils - but it insisted that all councils would receive at least a three per cent rise on what they got this year.

Hampshire is to get a 3.7 per cent increase - the lowest of any county in the country - and Basingstoke will get a 3.2 per cent rise - among the lowest of any district council.

County leader Cllr Thornber said: "This paltry sum is nowhere near enough to meet the teachers' and firefighters' pay awards and national insurance increases, as well as meeting the cost of inflation.

"In addition, without a considerable council tax rise, we will not be able to meet the huge budget pressures, particularly in social services due to increasing demand, rising costs of caring for greater numbers of young people with complex disabilities and special care needs, increasing numbers of older people with greater levels of dependency and the more intensive staffing and care they require, and rising costs for older people in care homes.

"The pressures will be compounded further if the Government proceeds with plans to fine councils for delayed hospital charges."

Cllr Thornber said the county council - already facing a deficit this year of more than £3million in social services - had strongly objected to the Government's redistribution of grants proposals and had been supported by local MPs and thousands of people who had joined the "Hands off Hampshire" campaign.

Last Tuesday, the county council handed in a 2,700 signature petition opposing the redistribution of grants into the Government.