HARD-UP North-East town halls will miss out on £300m of cash aimed at helping councils cope with a looming funding shake-up, it was claimed on Tuesday.

Local authority finance chiefs spent much of Tuesday in intense number-crunching, after Communities Secretary Greg Clark announced final funding levels for 2016-17 on Monday evening.

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In the Commons, Teesside-born Mr Clark trumpeted £300m to help ease a planned transition to local business rate retention, which will see business taxes being kept locally rather than redistributed according to need. Critics say this will only widen the gap between richer and poorer areas.

But many North-East councils missed out on a share – finding their funding was unchanged from provisional levels announced before Christmas.

Durham County Council will lose £16.5m, or 2.5 per cent, of its Core Spending Power (CSP), the Government’s preferred funding measure, next year – and 2.4 per cent over the next four years.

Its leader, Councillor Simon Henig, said the settlement would put the county at a huge disadvantage and none of the extra cash had been targeted at areas with greatest needs.

“This (settlement) is unfair and far too late,” he said.

Newcastle will lose £10m next year and 4.3 per cent by 2019; and Middlesbrough is down £4.8m next year and 3.8 per cent by 2019.

By contrast, the CSP of Craven, Richmondshire, Hambleton, Ryedale and Selby will rise next year, as Mr Clark’s £93m of support for rural councils kicks in; although all five North Yorkshire districts will lose out overall by 2019-20 – Selby by more than a tenth.

Cllr Christopher Akers-Belcher, leader of Hartlepool Council, which will lose £3.3m CSP next year and 3.4 per cent by 2019, said the settlement was ruthless and demonstrated the Government’s total disregard for the people of his town.

“It is a real slap in the face for the town and its residents that we will not receive a single penny of the transitional funding… (while) an already affluent area such as Wokingham in Berkshire stands to receive millions of pounds more in transitional funding. How can that possibly be fair?”

Cllr Mel Spending, cabinet secretary at Sunderland City Council, which will lose £10m CSP next year and 2.8 per cent by 2019, said it was very disappointing and most of the transitional funding was going to shire counties and shire districts.

North Tyneside will receive no transitional funding or rural council support, a spokeswoman confirmed.

There are some winners in our region: Northumberland will get £300,000 in transitional support and £2.3m from the Rural Services Delivery Grant. However, its CSP will still fall by 2.5 per cent by 2019.

North Yorkshire County Council will be £15m better off than expected over the next two years and its leader, Cllr Carl Les welcomed the settlement, thanked the county’s MPs for championing the cause of rural councils and paid tribute to Mr Clark for taking on board their concerns.

Councils across the region will set their 2016-17 budget in the coming weeks.