Ealing Council has frozen council tax rates for the eighth consecutive year.

The decision, made at a meeting of the full council on Tuesday (February 23), means families living in an average Band D property will pay £1,354.93 from April 2016 to March 2017.

This includes £276 to the Mayor of London, a 6.4% decrease on last year, meaning council tax will actually fall slightly in Ealing, as it has in Hounslow.

The government had given permission for an increase of up to 3.9% to safeguard services, but in Ealing councillors voted for a freeze after declaring government funding cuts had not impacted on it as much as expected .

Councillor Julian Bell, who leads the Labour administration at the Town Hall, said: “I’m delighted we’ve again been able to freeze council tax, despite the enormous pressures on our budgets in recent years.

“I think it’s right to protect our residents from further financial burden .

“Although the last few years have been tough, we have also worked tirelessly to drive regeneration and attract new investment which has brought in new money and strengthened our local economy.

“We will continue to show Ealing is open for business and capitalise on projects like Crossrail for the benefit of our residents.”

The council will allocate £2.3million extra for social care next year, rising to £4million by 2019/20. It also intends to create a special £5million ‘social care transformation fund’ to redesign services so that fewer people need intensive help in future years.

That social care funding package would exceed the amount of additional money that the council could raise through the government’s proposed council tax rise.

Cllr Bell said the borough expects to freeze council tax and still balance its budget despite having less than half the money it had in 2010 to spend on services, thanks to its “prudent financial management”.

Cllr Yvonne Johnson, cabinet member for finance, performance and customer services, added: “As soon as it became clear that we would be facing major long-term cuts to our funding we took swift action to cut our costs, work more efficiently and reduce spending wherever possible to balance the books.

”Ealing is making plans for a further £12milllion of efficiency savings by April 2020 , in addition to the budget reductions already agreed."