NORTH Yorkshire County Council has approved a council tax rise of 4.9 per cent.

The increase means householders living in an average Band D property will pay £847 in the next financial year - a rise of 77p a week, or £40 a year, on the previous 12 months.

Councillor John Weighell, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, said the new budget would mean an extra £15m for education, nearly £8m more for social care, £3m for environmental services, and £750,000 for libraries and business services.

Coun Weighell said: "The Government's annual settlement has been difficult for North Yorkshire, involving a clawback of more than £1m of grant paid to us last year which has already been spent on important public services.

"In addition, the Government's figures assumed that shire counties in England would need to increase council tax by slightly more than five per cent in order to meet Government spending plans.

"This involves a significant extra burden on the council tax payer, so we have worked hard to achieve a lower figure, while not compromising the quality of our services."

However, Liberal Democrats in the Tory-run council have refused to support the council's budget plans.

Coun Caroline Seymour, Liberal Democrat group leader, said: "Whilst we welcome the extra money for libraries and support for older people, the county council has not done enough to keep costs down.

"Buildings have been left expensively empty for long periods and new IT projects have not delivered the expected savings.

"All of this costs North Yorkshire taxpayers money unnecessarily."