Stratford district is not going to get any extra cash from the government next year, and councillors are angry that their share of the national cake has fallen.

Stratford-on-Avon District Council's provisional grant from the government for 2001/2002 is just under £6m at £5,997,000, the same amount as for the current year.

Cllr Chris Saint, chairman of the management committee, said:

"I am very disappointed and angry that we have not been granted any increase towards our budget for next year."

"This grant helps to pay for the services that the district council has to provide, and at a time when there has been a national increase in government grant of about double the rate of inflation, it is particularly galling that our share of the national cake is relatively poor.

"In an atmosphere of cost increases and inflationary pressure, low grant settlements make an increase in council tax harder to avoid."

The figures announced by the government are the annual local government finance proposals. The government issues a Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) for each local authority.

The SSA uses a complicated formula including number of residents, density of population, and other factors to calculate each individual authority's level of government grant.

However, it is left to individual councils to set their actual council tax.