East Renfrewshire’s residents will be hit with an eye-watering council tax rise.

That’s after the local authority voted to impose a three per cent increase in each of the next three years, starting in April.

The decision, agreed at yesterday’s annual budget meeting, means some residents will be more than £262 worse-off by 2021.

Council tenants will also be hit in the pocket, with the average rent set to rocket by £300 a year from next year.

Defending the decision, council leader Tony Buchanan said: “We recognise that this increase will add an additional burden to our residents, however, not to do so was not an option.

“Without generating this additional income there would be a major reduction in funding to our schools, public infrastructure such as roads, in our local environment such as parks and cleansing services and we would see large scale cuts to social care budgets.”

Despite receiving around £179million in funding this year, council bosses will attempt to plug a £24million shortfall over the next three years.

That will involve cutting head teacher budgets by £500,000 and reducing funding to the Integrated Joint Board – a partnership with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – by £7.2million.

No compulsory redundancies will be made this year but the council plans on disposing of over 260 jobs from next year.

Councillors voted 10-6 in favour of the administration’s plans which will also see £250,000 spent on new laptops and tablets for schools as well as an additional £150,000 to improve its mixed tenure properties.

More than £10million will also be spent on roads while £2million will be used to maintain parks, cemeteries and pitches across the area.

Surprisingly, Conservative councillors did not propose an amendment to the council tax rise but did set out plans to strip head teachers of £1million over the next three years.

The Tories also called on the council to increase spending on roads to £5million, with Councillor Jim Swift describing East Renfrewshire’s roads as “third world”.

Tory group leader Stewart Miller said: “Our nationalist government got a one per cent increase in funding from Westminster.

“The SNP finance minister (Derek Mackay) can dress it up in any way he likes but it’s still councils like ours that are suffering from SNP austerity.”