At last night's Council meeting, it was agreed Tandridge District Council would not increase the district's council tax for next year.

The Band D council tax remains the same as last year at £193.62, which is £3.72 a week for a wide range of services including refuse collection and recycling, planning, street sweeping, housing, housing benefits and children's play areas.

Surrey County Council, which provides services including education, adult social care, children services and highways, together with the Surrey Police Authority, have agreed to increase their Band D level for 2012/2013.

A Band D Council tax is split between the organisations as follows:

This gives an overall Band D Council Tax level of £1,546.77 for next year, which is a 2.54% increase compared to the current year. An average increase across the district including parish precepts is 2.63%.

People on income support or guaranteed pension credit who have no non-dependants will continue to have the cost of council tax fully met by council tax benefit. Other people on council tax benefit will automatically have their benefit recalculated to reflect their revised council tax bills.

Chairman of Resources Committee, Councillor Martin Fisher, said: "For a second year running there is no increase in council tax and services have been protected. Through careful financial management we are one of the few councils to have maintained a high level of services for the benefit of our residents, with no increase.

"We have absorbed a 29% cut in Government Grant support in the last two years and lower interest income by continuing to make substantial reductions to our support services, including staffing. Our staff have also demonstrated their commitment, by coping with a recruitment freeze which has been in place since 2008 and adopting flexible working practices.

"We continue to offer value for money by concentrating expenditure on providing and supporting front line services. We are particularly pleased to keep free shoppers parking to support local businesses. Our garden waste collection service continues to grow, with over 5,400 households subscribing to it.

"We plan major changes to our recycling and waste contract for the benefit of the environment through reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill, while maintaining weekly collections and a back door waste collection service.

"There is no doubt the next few years will continue to be difficult, but we are confident we can maintain the services our residents' value."