CASH-strapped police chiefs have warned council tax increases could be ahead next year after government budget announcements revealed a "significant shortfall" in funding.

Under budgetary settlement figures for 2005/6 issued earlier this week, Lancashire Constabulary are set to receive around £190.8million in funding - a rise of 4.33 per cent on last year.

But - according to senior police and Lancashire Police Authority (LPA) members - the county's force need an increase of at least 5.9 per cent to continue current service levels.

And this figure could rise to around 6.4 per cent if plans to improve areas of "essential growth", such as counter terrorism, are to go ahead.

As reported in The Citizen (November 25) force chief's are now faced with the decision to take around 50 police officers off the county's streets or lobbying parliament into relaxing council tax 'capping' measures.

Chair of Lancashire Police Authority, Baroness Ruth Henig said: " We are pleased to see that the Government is giving Lancashire a higher level of grant than we had feared.

"But we still anticipate difficult decisions ahead.

"A key element in these decisions will be the views of Lancashire people on how much they are prepared to pay for policing the county.

"Right now we are consulting extensively on likely levels of council tax for policing next year, using a citizens' panel of 4,000 people representative of the county as a whole.

"In addition to this we are conducting face-to-face meetings with people in each of our policing divisions and on-line questionnaires on our police authority website.

"We will be taking these views into account as we now lobby our MP's and the Home Office to improve the prospects for resourcing our police service in Lancashire."

Lancashire Chief Constable Paul Stephenson said: "We are grateful that the settlement has not matched our worst case scenario.

"But the Constabulary already faces inflationary pressures with national pay and price increases accounting for a 3.5 per cent rise.

"We are also committed to a 2.5 per cent increase in budget to cover other increases such as pensions and investment in new forensic techniques.

"When you take these increases into consideration it becomes clear that we do face a significant shortfall."

LOCAL authorities across the Fylde coast have also been issued with their government budgetary settlement figures for the 2005/6 financial year.

According to the figures revealed this week, Lancashire County Council will receive £39m, (an increase of 5.3 per cent on last year); Blackpool Council have been awarded 8.49m (an increase of 6.9 per cent); Wyre Borough Council have been allotted 618,000 (an increase of 8.9 per cent) and Fylde Borough Council will receive 187,000 (an increase of 4.4 per cent).