RESIDENTS in West Sussex will see their first rise in council tax bills in six years after councillors voted through £18 million of cuts.

Band D home residents will see their bills rise by £45.90 per year from April after 42 councillors of 67 present voted in favour of the budget proposals yesterday afternoon after more than three hours of debate.

Twenty-five councillors abstained from the vote proposing the 3.95 per cent council tax rise including two Conservative members.

Ukip councillors blamed the need for £42 million of savings over two years on "the savagery of Westminster" while Conservative councillor Janet Mockridge warned residents could not afford the rise.

Council leader Louise Goldsmith said she was requesting the council tax rise with a “heavy heart and clear head”.

The council administration was accused of "dithering" after failing to include in 2016/17 spending plans £6.2 million given to the authority by central government only this month.

Labour group leader Sue Mullins said it was important that the council spent the money George Osborne had retrieved before the government clawed it back.

But finance lead Cllr Jeremy Hunt said a more cautious approach was required with a decision to be made in April to avoid the council "spending in haste and repenting at leisure".

An amendment by Liberal Democrat group leader Dr James Walsh to spend half of the new funding on pothole repairs, raising the “absurdly” low £10,000 safer routes to school budget and improving the “third world” rural roads was defeated.

Cllr Hunt moved to allay fears by party colleague Steve Waight that a 3.95 per cent rise would be the norm for the next three years after the rise was included in future projections up to 2020.

He said the rise was done "not happily, not glibly and not without soul searching".

Cllr Goldsmith said: "I would prefer not to do 3.95 per cent but that is better than the options if we didn’t."

Cllr Mullins described the council's administration as "obedient poodles" of the Government whose policy of council tax freezes had been "turned on its head" while Cllr Walsh said £160 million cuts already made had damaged adult social care, rural bus services and the “abolition of meaningful youth services”.

Ukip group leader Mike Glennon said he was disgusted that the Conservative government was passing on its “crass inability” to deal with the national debt on to local authorities.

He said: "We need to honour our social and moral responsibilities so I won’t oppose this budget.

"But because I deplore the cowardice and ineptitude of the Tory party in Westminster and here I will not support this budget."