WINCHESTER civic chiefs have this evening voted to increase council tax by three per cent.

An average Band D property will now be paying £147.34 a year for city council services.

The ruling Lib Dem group voted through its budget that includes cost-cutting with the loss of 20 jobs as well as a council tax rise of three per cent.

Last-minute Conservative attempts to amend the budget at a virtual meeting were voted down.

Lib Dem senior councillor Neil Cutler (pictured) said the budget has been drawn up as the council wrestles with the financial crisis caused by Covid, with a huge drop in income from car parking and rents.

Cllr Cutler said: "It is astonishing to think it is a year since we last met in person to decide the 2020-21 budget. Nobody could have foreseen just how Covid was going to change everything."

He said even with Government support there was still a £3.7m deficit in the budget.

Conservative group leader Cllr Caroline Horrill criticised the budget: "You have received £8m from the Government. The situation is not a bleak as some might want us to think. We are still supporting the arts, giving grants to local communities and delivering new sports facilities at Bar End and Meadowside and still holding significant reserves.

"So don't let the Lib Dems tell you the council is broke. This is why they are hitting residents with increased fees and charges. We have £21m in reserves meant for rainy days, £63m in assets without including housing stock.

"Sadly, despite this it is the residents that must pay at every turn. Why are we hitting their pockets during these challenging times? It is not fair when they have so much to contend with in their own personal lives. There are alternatives and different choices to be made."

Council leader Cllr Lucille Thompson said prudent budgeting meant the council could cut costs but still invest in vital new services such as expanded recycling and schemes to help the poorest. The assumption was that income would decline by 20 per cent next financial year.

"I don't know where the opposition have been for the last year. This has been an incredibly turbulent year as the pandemic continues. It has not gone away yet."

Tory Cllr Stephen Godfrey proposed an amendment to save money by scrapping parking charges in the city centre in the evenings and Sundays, limiting any staff pay increase; reverse plans to cut £149,000 from the planning department, and invest £100,000 to help the poorest with the new brown garden waste bins.

Cllr Godfrey said: "In business as in the military it is essential to be decisive; it shouldn't be different in public services. This budget demonstrates a lack of decisiveness. The council needs to reduce expenditure but with salami slices but not take tough decisions to focus on essentials."

Cllr Thompson said it was appalling and outrageous that the Tories had proposed not giving staff who have worked flat out for a year should not get a pay rise.

Cllr Martin Tod branded the Tory amendment as "fantasy finance", based on an unsustainable raiding of reserves. "We had eight years of failure under the Conservatives (2011-2019 administration) and now saying magically it is a cceptable to put a new £7m hole in finances because magically people could not sort it in better economic circumstances can do it now."

The amendment was defeated by 26 votes to 16, and the budget including the three per cent council tax approved by the same margin. The meeting lasted into the early hours of this morning.