Surrey County Council (SCC) cabinet has agreed a recommendation to raise council tax in 2012 despite the Government offering councils a one-off grant to freeze council tax for another year.

The decision was made at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, January 31, in the face of an offer by the coalition government to give councils a 2.5 per cent grant in 2012 to freeze council tax.

However SCC has said accepting the grant and freezing council tax would lead to a £70m ‘financial black hole’ over five years putting the council down by £14m each year after grant payment - the equivalent to wiping out the council’s road maintenance budget for more than two years.

Instead the cabinet has recommended that council tax be increased by 2.99 per cent.

Speaking at the meeting David Hodge, leader of the council said: "We are now clear that our long term plan needs an income strategy to protect resident’s pockets in the future.

"Long term stability is the key to our future. Short term solutions always lead to paying the price."

He added: "After exhaustive analysis I’m convinced the one-off grant is not in the medium to long term interests of the Surrey residents and today I am recommending to my colleagues that we reject the government’s council tax freeze.”

The cabinet’s recommendation will now go forward to a meeting of SCC’s full council on Tuesday, February 7, when a final decision will be made.