COUNCIL tax in the Darlington borough may rise by 4.8 per cent, as officials pledge they will provide excellent value for money.

Bosses at Darlington Borough Council said the proposed increase represented an increase of 57p per week for a Band A property.

They believe that the authority will continue to have the lowest council tax in the North-East once the final budget for the coming year is approved in March.

Authorities all over the country are facing financial dilemmas, with the Government insisting that council tax rises must be below five per cent.

However, plans to dip into multi-million pound revenue balances to help meet a budget gap have been criticised by the local Conservative group.

Three-quarters of the authority's income comes from a central Government grant, but the £80.3m allocated for 2005/06 is not as good as was expected.

As a result, finance chiefs have announced their intention to help fund some services by using some of the council's £6.8m reserves.

That idea was questioned by Tory councillors, who said that the ruling Labour group had decided against such a move last year.

Conservative resources spokesman Charles Johnson said: "Setting the budget is going to be a gloomy time for the Labour group. The budget plan for 2005/6 is already in deficit by £2m.

"Savings can be made in the rest of 2004/05 which hopefully will offset some of this deficit and we have to see how much this will be.

"The use of council reserves was ruled out last year by the controlling group as, quote, 'reckless in the extreme', so there would appear to be little option but to cut costs significantly."

However, chief executive Barry Keel was adamant that there would be no service cuts and that Darlington residents would continue to see major improvements.

There would, however, be £1.3m worth of 'efficiency savings' in the course of the year.

Funds would be invested to keep services, such as a neighbourhood management scheme at Firthmoor, running after grants had run out, Mr Keel said.

A £3m upgrade of the Dolphin Centre will also continue, enhancing sports, childcare and catering facilities, as well as seeing a modern register office and marriage hall based there.

Mr Keel also referred to major developments, including the £35m Haughton education village; new schools at Skerne Park, Middleton St George and Cockerton; £35m worth of investment in housing stock; £15m being invested in the highways infrastructure and £7m in the town centre 'pedestrian heart' scheme.

He said: "The budget attempts to achieve the balance between keeping council tax low and continuing to provide good quality services."