BURNLEY Council today kept its promise to residents and said council tax would not rise by more than five per cent this year.

The budget was announced yesterday, with councillors pegging the increase for the borough part of the bill at exactly five per cent.

But the overall rise could be as much as 9.3 per cent once Lancashire County Council and the Police Authority add their increases to the final figure.

The council also revealed it had clawed back £1.2million from the budget after announcing it needed to save £1 million from the 2003/4 coffers.

Town Hall finance chief Nick Aves said: "There will be some cuts in services, but they will be relatively small. There will be nothing as radical as closing Gannow swimming baths, the cuts will be more marginal."

They include up to 20 redundancies from council staff.

Mr Aves added: "Those will mainly be achieved through early retirement and voluntary redundancies."

The council has also been given a boost with an increase in the amount of money it receives from the Treasury.

Burnley's Revenue Support Grant has not altered in relative terms since the early 1990s, but for the next financial year the council said it has been given a "significant" rise.

Those objectives were identified by the council after a consultation exercise with residents in the town.

The Citizens' Panel, a cross-section of 100 people, was asked what they would like to see spending focused on. Businesses in Burnley were also consulted.

The council said it will target spending in the next financial year on five "strategic objectives".

These include making Burnley a cleaner, greener and safer environment, better housing and developing a strong local economy.

Mr Aves continued: "The consultation will help us in a number of areas in the budget so that we have more of our resources targeted to our objectives.

"We had to make sure the budget met our strategic objectives so that we have more of our resources targeted to where people want to see it spent.

"We hope local residents will understand which part of their council tax goes to which body. We carried out a two stage consultation and there was a significant number of people who said they were prepared to more than five per cent.

"The only thing we have not done is carry out a full referendum, but we did not think that appropriate. Other than that I am quite satisfied we have consulted with people widely."