A HUGE council tax increase looks inevitable in North Yorkshire after county councillors sealed a provisional agreement.

But political leaders promised to launch their biggest public consultation to discover where residents wanted their limited funds spent.

At a full meeting of the council, provisional plans for a 10.25 per cent rise were voted through - equivalent to an extra £1.31 a week on the average band D property.

"Although nobody wants to see an increase in council tax, our proposals were passed without a single vote against," said council leader John Weighell.

He said the rise would fund an additional £1.4 million of spending needed for the county's schools, while an extra £1.95 million will be put into social services.

He said the reason for the large rise was a combination of a poor settlement of Government cash, and incidents during the last year including the Great Heck rail disaster, floods and the foot and mouth crisis.

"According to the Government's own figures, we have to put bills up by over six per cent just to stand still," said Coun Weighell.

"Our auditors say we must replace the cash reserves which have been hit this year in an unprecedented way."

But he added that the council will embark on its largest ever public consultation, involving area committees, parish councils and schools, to discover people's priorities.

He said: "We have set out what we consider North Yorkshire needs, such as winter maintenance and more books for libraries, but this consultation allows us to find out what our communities believe are the priorities for the future."

David Billing, the council's Labour group leader, refused to admit the Government's cash allocation was to blame for the increase.

He said: "The residents of North Yorkshire should be left in no doubt that these well above inflation rises in council tax are entirely due to Conservative mis-management of previous budget settlements."

Final budget decisions will be made in February.

Updated: 08:32 Thursday, December 20, 2001