COUNCIL tax rises may be lower than expected as Mayor Ken Livingstone's precept was lowered to single figures this week.

The Greater London Authority precept will now see a 9.9 per cent rise and not 12 per cent as first thought, owing to savings in the Transport for London (TfL) budget.

The Mayor released his draft budget for the coming year on Friday. The tax rise will help to pay for 100 extra transport police and new dedicated teams of bobbies for three of the worst neighbourhoods in each London borough.

It will also cover the introduction of 200 extra firefighters to improve capacity to respond to a major or catastrophic incident. The cost has been brought down to £247 for an average Band D household. The Mayor's budget for 2004/05 is £2.8 billion.

Mr Livingstone said: "My budget increase this year concentrates solely on policing and security with the extra cash paying for more police and more firefighters.

"Six in ten Londoners are prepared to pay 70 p per week extra on their council tax to pay for six permanent uniformed officers in each area. Under my proposals, the neighbourhood policing will cost Londoners much less than this.

"In order to set a precept increase which is as low as possible I have reassessed TfL's need for working capital and I'm now satisfied that I can prudently reduce the proposed precept increase."

Tory mayoral candidate Steve Norris criticised the Mayor this week by claiming council tax would double in the next four years if Mr Livingstone were re-elected.

Mr Norris launched a report on Monday detailing the cost to Londoners of the Mayor's policies since his election in 2000.

Council tax has doubled in four years and the number of staff at City Hall has rocketed from 280 to 630. Mr Norris said: "Londoners understand very well what the cost of Livingstone means for them even higher council taxes.

"Despite the huge amounts of additional council tax, people simply do not feel safer on London's streets or that the tube network is any better."