A RISE in council tax was announced today (Tuesday) by Sedgemoor District Council - and it says the cash will go to directly to pushing the regeneration of Burnham and Highbridge.

The local authority has set its proportion of the tax at 3.5%, which works out as a rise of £3.93 per year for a band D property.

And among the main areas for increased spending is final preparatory works for the South West Regional Development Agency for getting the major multi-million pound investment for Burnham Highbridge's Civic Pride scheme up and running.

Council leader Cllr Duncan McGinty said he had have never felt more constrained in what his group could recommend to council and outlined what money would be spent on.

"We will continue to work with SWRDA on the final leg of the pre-investment scoping work to ensure that the long awaited announcement of a major multi-million pound investment for Burnham and Highbridge is secured during 2007/2008, thus enabling Somerset's only pilot Civic Pride scheme to be realised," he said.

"We propose a budget which sets out to make Sedgemoor even cleaner through the deployment of additional resources creating additional street cleaners, new litter bins, appropriate new cleansing schedules for new housing estates and a new reinvigorated energy to make Sedgemoor even cleaner.

"We will invest in a major new programme of refurbishments to our public conveniences across Sedgemoor, because that's what people have told us they want.

"We will ensure our cemeteries and closed churchyards are safe environments and maintain a dignified existence.

"We will continue to drive our ambition to achieve a massive investment of almost £50million from the Big Lottery Fund for water related projects, and especially the Parrett Sluice."

The council had identified a funding gap of approx £600,000 which had to be closed to deliver a balanced budget, agreed at the full council meeting on February 16.

The main factors were decreasing amounts of money that central government give district councils in grants, a need to put funds aside for the increased uptake in concessionary bus fares, need to increase recycling rates to avoid landfill tax and improved waste collection.

"This year's budget has been set in an environment of hostility created by central Government where, through the White Paper, they have pitched one council against another," Cllr McGinty said.

"Instead of councils, both at the county and district, working together to make a difference to people's lives, they have created hostilities - surely this is just another distraction tactic to take our eyes away from a failing Government.

"In the past year the Government has promised us much and delivered little - I will quote but two examples.

"Building Schools for the Future, initial celebration at the news that Bridgwater was to have access to funding for a new generation of schools, only to be followed by the news that the funding is to be reduced.

"Police Community Support Officers - Home Office funding cut, and we are unlikely to have any more on the streets beyond the first phase. A history of raising expectations followed by a failure to deliver.

"Well that's not the Sedgemoor way, my group's budget focuses unashamedly on issues that people really care about and we will deliver as history has shown."