RESIDENTS across Cumbria will face increased council tax bills from April after the county authority agreed to hike its precept by four per cent.

The rise consists of a 1.99 per cent jump in Cumbria County Council's share of council tax, as well as an additional two per cent to help pay for adult social care.

Cumbria County Council's finance boss Councillor Patricia Bell said "relentless" cuts to the authority's funding from government had forced the increase, voted through at a crunch budget meeting in Kendal today.

Cllr Bell described the task of balancing CCC's books amid continued austerity as an "absolutely colossal task".

She said: "This is the eighth year of funding cuts. It has been relentless. "No council can repeatedly make such huge savings and keep services the same, particularly when set against a background of increased uncertainty in Brexit and changes to business rates."

Cllr Bell also spoke of the strain of meeting the rising costs of providing adult social care in a county with a 'super aging' population.

"The government needs to wake up to the fact that adult social care is underfunded.

"Cumbria is no different to Surrey when it comes to the need to raise money for this."

The council tax increase for 2017/18 is expected to generate £4m in extra income for the cash-starved county as it grapples with a further £50m in cuts to its revenue support grant by 2020.

The move will see Band D householders paying an extra £49.15 next year, on top of proposed increases to the precepts of district councils and the police.

CCC has already reduced is spending by £198m since 2011 - a figure set to rise to a total of £250m within the next three years.

Councillor James Airey, leader of the Conservative opposition, broke with tradition when he did not present an alternative budget at the meeting.

Instead, he championed a move to a unitary model of government for Cumbria that he said could save an annual £70m across the county. Cllr Airey said: "I didn't think it was appropriate to use a considerable amount of officer time producing an alternative budget that would have been dismissed and derided by the administration.

"This administration is like a knackered locomotive that has run out of steam. When we are in administration we know we'll have to make tough decisions and we won't shy away from doing so.

"But when we do we will always be upfront and honest with people about our intentions."

The budget was approved on a vote of 53 in favour and 21 against with no abstentions.

Labour Councillor Anne Burns, CCC's children's services boss, said the swingeing cuts to the authority's funding from the government - which is due to be stopped entirely by 2020 - was "disgraceful".

She said: "You can't make these kind of cuts without it hurting people. The reductions we face are so big that we are being forced to strip services from people who don't deserve to have anything taken away from them. "It's disgraceful."