NORTH Yorkshire County Council was warned yesterday against making proposed cuts of almost £500,000 in flood prevention work.

The environmental services directorate of the authority, which is consulting the public on a proposed council tax rise of 9.5pc in the coming financial year, is facing a £3.3m shortfall in funding for the work it does on roads and bridges, flood prevention and waste management.

The committee of councillors which examines the work of the department was told yesterday that it was being penalised with a reduction in Government funding for highway maintenance because it had consistently underspent its Whitehall allocation for several years.

Savings of £1.3m next year have already been identified, partly by abandoning a target to reduce the growth in waste volumes by 1pc next year and foregoing additional flood prevention works.

In an attempt to bridge the remaining £2m gap, environmental service director Mike Moore has proposed spending cuts including £1m on road surface dressing, £475,000 on flood prevention, £125,000 on traffic controls and £100,000 on waste management and recycling.

A dedicated highways help line, intended to speed up the handling of public complaints about roads and to relieve pressure on council staff, could also become a casualty by removing £65,000 from the budget.

But Coun John Duggan, representing an area of the county badly hit by flooding, told the scrutiny committee yesterday: "If I go to my constituents and tell them we are going to cut flood prevention money even further they won't wear it."

Coun Cliff Wilson, representing Boroughbridge, said: "The roads and verges in my patch are the worst they have ever been in all the many years I have sat here."

Coun Bill Hoult, vice-chairman of the committee, said: "The council has consistently underspent by about £5m for a number of years now on highway maintenance and has been warned time and time again by the Government that its grant would be reduced. It cannot cry wolf now.

"Everybody can see the deteriorating state of our roads and knows that to spend less now is a false economy and just stores up worse problems for the future."

Mr Moore said the proposed spending cuts would reduce the countywide programme for strengthening weak bridges, wipe out direct funding for preparatory work on bypasses and mean no improvement in road maintenance.

They could also mean a reduction in Government funding in future years if targets in the local transport plan were not delivered.

He said budgets for winter maintenance and passenger transport had been protected against cuts and the integrated transport programme remained unaffected.

The environmental services budget will be considered by the council executive before a final council tax figure is approved by the full county council.

* People in the Harrogate Borough Council area can discuss the county council's proposed budget at a drop-in session involving senior councillors at Harrogate Library next Thursday (11am-2pm). The budget will then be considered by the Harrogate area committee of the authority at Ripon Leisure Centre