THE Government is being urged to lift its cap on council tax to help fill a £5.8billion funding gap by the end of the decade.

Local Government Association (LGA) chairman, Lord Porter of Spalding, said that by 2020, English councils will have lost 75p out of every £1 they previously received in core central Government funding in 2015.

Addressing the LGA’s annual conference in Birmingham, he said that local authorities should be at the “front of the queue” for support.

According to the LGA, even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks and open spaces, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums and leisure centres and turned off every street light, they still would not have saved enough money to plug the gap.

It is now pressing the Government to lift the cap on council tax and wants councils to keep all of the £26billion they collect each year in business rates.

In his speech, Lord Porter said: “Councils can no longer be expected to run our vital local services on a shoestring.

“We must shout from the roof tops for local government to be put back on a sustainable financial footing. Local government is the fabric of our country, even more so during this period of uncertainty for the nation. Councils are the ones who can be trusted to make a difference to people’s lives.”

Tory councillor Kevin Blake said that if Basildon Council increased tax, the extra money would need to be ring-fenced for certain issues.

He said: “Being a Tory who believes in low taxation, I don’t want the council tax to go up more than two per cent, but if it does then I would like it to be ring-fenced.

“For example, if you say to residents that the extra council tax will be spent on enforcement action stopping development on green belt land, I think they would be for it. If we could guarantee that it would be spent on the community, then we are getting there.

“It is a very worrying state of affairs.”

Veteran Canvey councillor Ray Howard added: “I am very disappointed to hear that the chairman of the LGA has said this and although I am pleased to hear the suggestion about business rates, I would like to know how they would divide that out.

“Castle Point does not have the amount of businesses compared to other districts.

“I understand why the Government put the cap on not allowing you to raise the council tax by more than two per cent but if we can’t provide the public services, then we will have to charge more.”