A LAST-ditch attempt to save the DLI Museum from closure failed as the North-East’s biggest council backed a budget containing £37m of cuts and a 3.99 per cent tax hike.

The Conservative group on Durham County Council suggested axing the council’s Durham County News magazine and centralising back office functions in order to give the Durham Light Infantry Museum, which is due to close on April 1, a one-year reprieve, as well as cutting parking charges and spending more on cleaning gullies to prevent flooding.

Tory leader Richard Bell demanded the DLI Trustees, who own the regiment’s treasures, “pull their collective finger out” and find a future for the Durham City museum, suggesting The Green Howards Museum in Richmond, North Yorkshire, could provide a model.

However, the ruling Labour group voted down the motion, with cabinet member Neil Foster saying the DLI museum was no longer fit for purpose and its annual attendance of 39,000 was very low.

The council says the museum is heavily subsidised and the DLI collection has outgrown it.

The Labour cabinet voted to close the museum last October, with the collection moving to a specialist facility in Spennymoor and long-term and temporary exhibitions being staged, including at Palace Green Library.

The Save the DLI Museum group is trying to raise £300,000 to keep it open.

The council agreed a 2016-17 budget including £37m of cuts, the highest since 2011, and a 3.99 per cent council tax rise, which includes two per cent to fund adult social care.

Another 400 jobs will be lost, on top of 1,950 axed since 2010, and £13.5m of reserves will be used by March 2018, but there will be a £135m capital spending programme to boost the economy.

The council will have cut more than £370m from its pre-austerity budget by 2020 and Labour figures are furious Tory shires were the big winners when the Government announced the latest funding settlement.

Cllr Simon Henig, the council’s Labour leader, said: “It’s a budget that despite a further £37m of enforced savings remains in line with our priorities, a budget that protects frontline services as best we can, a budget that protects people in County Durham and the services they consistently tell us are a priority for them.”

The Liberal Democrats proposed raising council tax by just two per cent and covering the shortfall from council reserves, but this was defeated.

Independent John Shuttleworth asked for an extra £1m for roads, paid for by reducing the risk budget and policy and communications work and stopping County Durham News. Again, this was defeated.

The main opposition group, the Durham Independents, did not put forward any budget proposals.

The 3.99 per cent tax rise will generate £7.1m, costing £1.02 a week extra for Band D householders and 68p a week more for Band A householders, the majority of council taxpayers in County Durham.

County Durham householders also face paying 1.98 per cent more for Durham Police and 1.9 per cent more for County Durham Fire and Rescue Service.