COUNCIL tax discounts could be available for pensioners living in North Yorkshire.

The county authority's ruling Conservative group will present the plan to a meeting of the governing executive on Tuesday.

If it wins a majority vote, North Yorkshire County Council officers will be asked to devise a scheme that would work.

Conservative leader, Councillor John Weighell, said: "We are very concerned by the difficulties some pensioners are having paying their council tax.

"Due to meagre rises in the state pension, I think it is very important to look at ways the council can help out."

However, if discounts are to become a reality, they would need the co-operation of North Yorkshire's district councils.

Senior politicians have also admitted they will still be duty-bound to ensure enough council tax is collected to pay for essential services - particularly in North Yorkshire where the county council is responsible for 85 per cent of spending on services including education, transport and social care.

Finance spokesman, Councillor Jim Clark, said: "We would like to explore the scope for helping pensioners in particular, but it is also important not to raise expectations unduly.

"Funding discounts will not be easy, particularly if there is another poor financial settlement from the government which needs to understand local authorities have had to raise their council tax to pay for the strategies and initiatives which Westminster keeps coming out with."

Despite recent criticism of councils by Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford, the North Yorkshire authority said it had done well to keep the percentage increase in council tax below the national average.

Recent rises sparked the formation of a pressure group in Catterick Village, where founder and publican Cath Thompson said yesterday that discounts for some were not enough.

"It's more to do with mismanagement," she said. "Until someone can get local authorities to run like businesses, things won't change.

"This is not about how many times the bins are emptied or the grass gets cut, it is more to do with over-staffing and waste."