CRAVEN council tax payers will have to dig deeper into their pockets this year to find the additional funding the county council says it needs to balance its budget plans for 2004.

The county council wants to increase its portion of the council tax bill by 5.75 per cent, equating to an increase in the Band D council tax bill of £44.42.

If the series of public meetings the council is holding throughout North Yorkshire meets a favourable response to the rise, it will mean a council tax bill of £817.09; equivalent to £15.71 per week for each household in that band (although other elements of the council tax will have to be added to that figure).

The consultation meeting for Craven was held at Aireville School, where John Moore, director of finance with North Yorkshire County Council, said that until now the cost of the fire service was included in the county council's budget.

"From April 1 this will no longer be the case and the precept for the fire service will be calculated separately. Last year the figure added for this band was £44.46," he said.

This means that the figure on the county council's tax bill will apparently show a decrease of four pence. However, the final total will show the increase.

Mr Moore told members of the public who had attended the meeting that the 5.75 per cent raise was around half of that added on last year and had been trimmed down as far as it could in order to maintain services throughout the year.

He said that the majority of it would go in wages for the various services the council provides - education, social services, environmental services such as highways maintenance and waste disposal and business and community services such as libraries and trading standards for instance - and that it had to comply with the levels set nationally.

He said the council had a net expenditure of £488 million, two thirds of which was funded by the Government, the remainder raised through householders through council tax.

He added that North Yorkshire County Council was one of the lowest taxing shire councils and had been praised by the district auditor for its good financial management and use of resources.

John Weighell, leader of the council, said that each year North Yorkshire spent more on education than the Government required it to - last year around £7 million - and this year it would need to spend almost £5 million extra. A further £5 million was earmarked for Social Services in safeguarding children and arranging care for adults and older people, and on capital plan financing such as roads. Around £4 million is earmarked for the youth service, library service and dealing with waste.

Despite highlighting the areas where the increase is to go, the general feeling from those present was that it could still be trimmed further.

Several speakers queried why the proposed increase was more than inflation and wanted more cuts to be made.

"From the feelings we get from the floor, Craven would prefer to see an increase of less than 5.75 per cent," concluded Mr Weighell.

"Other meetings we have attended, such as that at Hambleton, said they were happy with the proposals we set out. However, we will take everyone's comments back with us and look at the overall response at the end of the series of meetings."