Gordon Brown promises us extra cash to cushion tough council tax rises.

CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown has promised Swindon an extra £1.2 million to cushion residents against a crushing council tax rise.

This will be Swindon's share of the £350 million cake that Mr Brown unveiled to Parliament on Wednesday, as revealed in yesterday's Advertiser.

Leader of the Swindon Borough Council Labour opposition group, Coun Kevin Small (Western), immediately warned that the Tories no longer had any excuse to promote a double-figured per cent increase.

"This just goes to show that the Government is prepared to listen and to act on the concerns of people," he said.

"It would be criminal for the Swindon Tory administration to continue talking about £4.5 million in cuts."

He also called for the public consultation process in Swindon by the council to be scrapped.

"How can the public possibly make an informed choice without knowing what would be the consequences of their decisions?" he asked.

And North Swindon MP Michael Wills said that the council had to recognise the "huge increase in funds from the Government" and that this should be reflected in the council tax set next spring.

"There is now no need for anything like a 13 per cent rise," he said.

Council finance officers have recommended a 13.1 per cent hike. The new grant will only reduce that baseline figure to 10.9 per cent, it is claimed. However, the extra handout means that the total grant to Swindon from central government for 2004/2005, as announced last month, has now risen from £124,923,000 to £126,118,000.

This is an increase of 5.2 per cent from 2003/04, when the total grant was £119.855 million. The bottom line is that Swindon council is receiving £6.26 million more for vital frontline services.

A spokesman for the Treasury said that any claim of Swindon being under-funded was invalid. He added that Swindon would be unable to justify any rise into double figures and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott would definitely intervene, imposing capping measures, if such an increase was entertained.

In fact, Mr Prescott indicated that he was looking to Swindon council to keep down any rise to below five per cent.

But Swindon council leader Mike Bawden (Old Town and Lawns) dismissed the new money as "not a vast amount".

"We're delighted, of course, to get more, but it's not going to make the kind of difference we're looking for," he said.

"Our public consultation will go ahead as planned and the pressures on social services won't go away. What I'd like to know is what everyone else is getting before I make a final judgment."

Coun Michael Dickinson, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for corporate governance, said: "Although the fine details of the budget need to be studied, we shall be very disappointed if the Tories still carry out their threat of savage cuts to services.

"If they can't balance the budget with extra cash, then the residents of Swindon are in for real misery."

Michael Litchfield