COUNCIL taxpayers in Middlesbrough will have to pay about £20 more every month from April.

For a band D property, it will mean an annual bill of £1,085 - more than £100 a month.

Mayor Ray Mallon said the rise was necessary to ensure services to the town's residents were maintained.

He said he would continue to challenge statistics, which have seriously underestimated the population of the town and cost the council more than £3m in grants from the Government.

He said: "Government grant is based on a head count and independent research we have commissioned clearly shows that the way the census returns were calculated underestimates Middlesbrough's population by almost 5,000.

"This means we are not getting the amount of support grant we deserve and something must be done about this, because we cannot let Middlesbrough be short-changed again."

This year, Middlesbrough's support grant increased by 3.8 per cent - about half that of similar authorities, while the rise in council tax is 13.9 per cent.

The authority's spending is up by 12.5 per cent to support social services, which was recently reported to be "haemorrhaging money" due to excessive demand on the department.

Cleveland Police increased their precept by 25 per cent this year but the Government had only budgeted for a 10.6 per cent increase.

The council's budget for next year is £167m; including £71m to be spent on education; £32m for social care; and £15m which will be spent on the environment.