BURNHAM and Highbridge residents will have to dig deeper in their pockets as both Sedgemoor District Council and Burnham and Highbridge town council raise their council tax.

Sedgemoor District Council has raised its proportion of council tax by 1.99% while the town authority has raised its by 1.89%.

This means that for people living in a Band D property, council tax will rise by £4.15 per year.

Denise Emery, responsible financial officer for Burnham and Highbridge Town Council, said: “The rise is in line with inflation.

“We have to run the Princess Theatre and maintain and run the two council buildings. The electricity and heating alone have gone up by 4-5% so we can see why it’s easy to go up by 1.89%.”

“I make sure that what we have is sufficient. We keep maintaining a small increase so it doesn’t cost us in the future. We like to keep the council tax increase under 2% every year rather than raise more than 4% every three years.”

At its meeting to discuss Sedgemoor’s budget on Monday, the district council increased council tax in order to tackle flooding and provide more flood prevention schemes.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Duncan McGinty, leader of the council, said: “Our budget proposals are sustainable and prudent.

“We will further invest an additional £50,000, to include £30,000 for council tax relief, towards flooding expenditure – that makes £100,000 so far in total.

“Obviously, we hope that some of this will be refunded from Government but in meantime we do not want to be hindered by finance in providing the services to our residents at this time.”