Council tax will go up by more than £5 for taxpayers in Watford after a budget was passed last night.

Peter Taylor’s first ever budget was given the green light in Watford Borough Council’s chamber – a budget which the mayor says “protects vital services and keeps council tax down”.

He said he has kept an election promise by ensuring people in Watford pay no more than 2.2 per cent more than they were, which is below inflation. For a band D property, council tax will go up by around 11p – which is £5.76 a year.

The budget also includes key manifesto commitments put forward for new bus service and bike hire schemes in the town as Mr Taylor aims to solve issues involving transport and infrastructure in Watford.

A sum of £400,000 has also been set aside for improvements to St Albans Road, between Watford Junction and Balmoral Road – a long-running Watford Labour campaign, which Lib Dem Callowland councillor Ian Stotesbury has pushed to be included in this year’s Lib Dem budget.

Labour abstained on the budget – they neither expressed on record support or opposition to it.

Cllr Sohail Bashir, chairman of the budget panel, said Labour’s focus would have been on the more “vulnerable” such as combatting homelessness, helping women escape domestic violence, funding to the Citizens Advice Bureau, and introducing police community support officers across the whole of Watford and not just the town centre, and supporting young people.

In an effort to improve finances, the council has taken a 40 year lease on Croxley Park business park which it believes will bring in around £1.5m benefit every year to the town.

Without the Croxley Park deal, the budget gap over the next four years would have been £7.9m but this has been reduced now to £1.9m.

The mayor of Watford added: “We have worked hard to make sure that people get value for money and services are run efficiently. Despite a 70 per cent cut in central government funding over the last ten years, we’ve still been able to improve services whilst at the same time keeping our council tax increase low.”

The new budget will come into effect in the next financial year (April).